Digital Foundry Rage 2 analysis.

Nooblet · May 18, 2019

Frox said:
What does that have to do with anything? I used that as an example because it's super distracing in both cases.

It's just as noticeable when you're speeding with roach and stuff just loads as you go. Unlike Rage 2, TW3 actually has a dedicated setting for this which pretty much fixes it.

Everything.
Additionally it's not like Rage 2 does not have a dedicated setting for draw distance, it does it's called geometric setting. Pop ins are a result of draw distance, the faster you travel the more distance you have to travel and the more pop ins occur because things need to be drawn a lot faster for a lot further distance than you do when you are going slower. Witcher also has relatively denser environment so it can get away with having poor LOD for far off things as it'll get hidden/culled by things close off like heavy vegetation. In a less dense game your view is stretched out a lot further which further increases the likelihood of noticing pop ins and they'll be very noticeable even if they are very minor because the terrain is so openly visible.

Roach does not travel even half as fast, additionally take Spiderman for example the game's camera cannot travel faster than the max speed of Spiderman even in debug mode because it simply has not loaded things in. Point being draw distance and travel speeds are related.

Lukemia SL said:
What happened to Mirror's Edge Catalyst?

Well that's not really a proper open world in traditional sense tbh, the actual play area is so small as you are limited to rooftops.

Leo-Tyrant · May 18, 2019

God_Of_Phwoar said:
Did they lose the horrible texture pop in from the first game?

It got replaced by regular LOD and asset pop-in.

Mars · May 18, 2019

Karspankey said:
RAGE 2 is the pure gameplay showcase and Rec Dead Redemption 2 is the visuals showcase

Both exceed the expectations of the enhanced systems imo

Gonna have to disagree, especially considering how terrible Rage 2 is at everything else besides shooting a bad guy in really inventive and unique ways.

The satisfying gunplay is hindered by a boring, slightly disconnected open world and atrocious driving mechanics. While still maintaining performance and visual fidelity that leaves a bit to be desired. It's fine if it checks all your boxes but you can fault folks for feeling disappointed.

Deleted member 4970 · May 18, 2019

Mars said:
Gonna have to disagree, especially considering how terrible Rage 2 is at everything else besides shooting a bad guy in really inventive and unique ways.

The satisfying gunplay is hindered by a boring, slightly disconnected open world and atrocious driving mechanics. While still maintaining performance and visual fidelity that leaves a bit to be desired. It's fine if it checks all your boxes but you can fault folks for feeling disappointed.

I meant that it is an open world game with driving and fps combat running at 60fps

Wasn't talking about the actual game design!

Dark1x · May 18, 2019

Frox said:
Excuse me?

It's beyond terrible.

If anyone played something like The Witcher 3 with foliage visibility range set to medium or low, it's pretty similar to that.

I'm willing to forgive it for a locked 60 FPS, basically.

LuigiV · May 18, 2019

Great vid as always John but, I guess since you were busy working on this video, it means we're not getting a Castlevania Anniversary Collection episode of DF Retro tomorrow.

chandoog · May 18, 2019

Can't see the video at the moment, but does it go into what the Pro/X settings are equivalent to a PC ? I have the option of picking it up later either on a lite-medium gaming PC or a PS4 Pro, wondering which would be more suitable for me.

aisback · May 18, 2019

I am definitely going to give this a miss as It's seems to have too many drawbacks IMO.

It'll end up being something I buy when it's cheap digitally but never up playing

Deleted member 50232 · May 18, 2019

It's weird, at times it really is a stunning game. Other times it looks like a PS3 game. I wonder what the chances of them adding a 4K 30 mode on X in the future?

Jakartalado · May 18, 2019

Dark1x said:
I could not possibly disagree more. The texture work is generally solid and the IQ is very clean though.

I'm there with you John. Texture work is good enough for a open world 60fps title. And the image quality is also good enough (when I say good enough is because its not that good in a 4K screen in mind, but still manages to preserve the original art style).

The only department that manages to let me down is the pop in. While shooting and walking it's not a problem, but while driving it manages to look worse. The change in the camera angle makes everything look worse in this department.

CloseTalker · May 18, 2019

So we finally have a huge open world game at a locked 60fps, and people are still unhappy because it obviously needed to make certain sacrifices to achieve that. Gamers truly will never be pleased

J_ToSaveTheDay · May 18, 2019

Well, after this analysis, I'm gonna make a purchase on my Xbox One X in the near future. :) Thanks, Dark1x , the game always looked promising to my tastes but I just worried about performance when they said enhanced consoles would target 60fps. I have found that many games that target that alongside an open world this gen seem to be kinda janky and all over the place framerate-wise, but your analysis seems to indicate that Rage 2 bucks the trend.

Shame on the lack of HDR, though, but alas I'm still thinking this game looks well suited to my tastes and I'll be grabbing it by next weekend!

Deleted member 23475 · May 18, 2019

Playing the witcher 3 at 60 fps on X.
It's not consistent and they are pop-in as well that are very noticeable when on the horse but all in all it really doesn't matter to me.
We are far from the past 2 generations in that regard.

Dictator · May 18, 2019

This game feels atrocious at 30 fps in combat, not sure why anyone would want that when you can get a pretty darn consistent 60 on the pro consoles!

chandoog said:
Can't see the video at the moment, but does it go into what the Pro/X settings are equivalent to a PC ? I have the option of picking it up later either on a lite-medium gaming PC or a PS4 Pro, wondering which would be more suitable for me.

That would be the yet-to-be-finished PC video.

Also, people saying that Rage 1 looks better need to go back and play Rage 1. Beyond that artstyle when you stand 10 meters away from everything, the game aged so poorly. Everything is mislit that is dynamic and the static lighting and models are terribly low resolution, even on PC. They have obvious compression and banding in them as well (the game is LDR and often looks green in shadowed areas).

mogwai00 · May 18, 2019

Dictator said:
They have obvious compression and banding in them as well (the game is LDR and often looks green in shadowed areas).

Yep.
RAGE even on PC had some of worst banding artifacts seen last gen.

Its only merits was to offer 60 FPS on consoles with a good visual impact.
In absolute terms was nothing to write about.

Arkaign · May 18, 2019

Perhaps they will make a patch for the resolution folks. ~1440p/30 Pro, ~1800p/30 X.

I feel like I got lucky with how it runs on my PC and my son's, both are wildly different configs.

Vash63 · May 18, 2019

The amount of console gamers clamoring for halving the framerate in the name of visuals is exactly the reason most developers would never even consider optimizing for 60FPS on consoles. Clearly they made a mistake when considering the desires of the target market on the console releases.

HesienbergSHO · May 18, 2019

Dark1x said:
I'm willing to forgive it for a locked 60 FPS, basically.

Amen.

I can overlook a lot of other crap for higher frames.

Azurik · May 18, 2019

Give me 4k/30 with HDR and I throw you the monies.

Don't get why they just didn't go for the proven Id engine. Visually and artistically Rage 1 is more appealing to me. Technically might be another story.

R2 just makes too many sacrifices to achieve 60fps. Can't remember the Fox engine in MGS V being visually that bad despite being also a massive 60fps openworld on BASE consoles.

Deleted member 41931 · May 18, 2019

Brazil said:
Gonna watch it later, but does the sometimes 5 seconds-long delay in switching between main menu tabs get a mention? :x

Yeah. Performamce wise, the game has been great for me, but I get scared every time I have to pull up the menu. Only played for a few hours and it has already crashed and had to be restarted because of the menus.

OG_Thrills · May 18, 2019

Can someone give me details on the MTX in this game? Are there any grind or pay for XP booster mechanics?

Deleted member 25042 · May 18, 2019

While I can understand that sacrifices had to be made relative to pop in and other things to get the game running at 60fps on consoles, my issue is that the pop in is still pretty horrible on PC maxed out with the game on a SSD.
Worse than other games where you also drive around in a car at high speed.
And Rage 2's world is pretty barren..

Belvedere · May 18, 2019

I'm thankful that gameplay and a 60fps target was priority here. I wish more developers would take this approach, honestly.

Ardiloso · May 18, 2019

They didn't bother to use the X power advantage. I will not bother to buy this game.

M. Wallace · May 18, 2019

Brilliant game, awesome video

Dphex · May 18, 2019

Dark1x said:
I could not possibly disagree more. The texture work is generally solid and the IQ is very clean though.

and i could not disagree more to that...the IQ is blurry like vaseline smear filter and the texture work is awful, there are even ground textures not correctly aligned to each other in the jungle area. there are textures like those "Guacamolito" signs which are like from a Wii U, really low resolution and these are everywhere.

sry but it is what it is, i don´t have tomatoes on my eyes and this game is really blurry IQ and has distractlingly bad textures on the PS4Pro on a 4K TV. Also, the buildings and rocks are super blocky and low poly. this game is not solid visually, don´t know how you could come to such a conclusion tbh, i am really perplexed that someone calls this "clean IQ".

might be cool to have 60 fps but this game, no, it looks awful.

Deleted member 4072 · May 18, 2019

Dictator said:
This game feels atrocious at 30 fps in combat, not sure why anyone would want that when you can get a pretty darn consistent 60 on the pro consoles!

That would be the yet-to-be-finished PC video.

Also, people saying that Rage 1 looks better need to go back and play Rage 1. Beyond that artstyle when you stand 10 meters away from everything, the game aged so poorly. Everything is mislit that is dynamic and the static lighting and models are terribly low resolution, even on PC. They have obvious compression and banding in them as well (the game is LDR and often looks green in shadowed areas).

People love their screenshots of a still screen it seems. That's the only time a 30fps title might look better than a 60fps title if it has higher settings. Everything looks better in 60fps in motion. There is no debate.

Hogendaz85 · May 18, 2019

WEIRD PHYSICS! Haha Something I noticed with the physics like if I shoot a random tire on the ground it will react or move once but when I shoot it again nothing happens like it's locked in position.

RoboPlato · May 18, 2019

Performance is impressive on the enhanced consoles. I wasn't expecting that given Avalanche's track record and was absolutely the right choice for a game like Rage. Unfortunately that leaves the base consoles as a subpar choice for this type of gameplay.

Visually I disagree with John, I don't think the game looks good outside of the explosions and inclusion of a comprehensive motion blur solution. In particular the NPC models and the banding filled, flickering shadows. Combine that with the game's blurry look while still having aliasing, and it's a very noisy/unstable image. PC can probably fix that though and I think it would help a great deal (I'm on PS4 Pro)

Not to mention that this is the buggiest game I have played in quite some time. Every story mission had a progress stopping bug I had to restart to fix and every session I've had with the game has had several bugs occur that make it a pain to play.

PJsprojects · May 18, 2019

Im running ultra at 2560x1080 on my RTX2060 and that struggles to keep 60fps so it looks like the consoles are doing a pretty good job all round.

Mona · May 18, 2019

Is 1080p worth it for 60fps?

im embarrassed to live in a world where this is even a question

ApeEscaper · May 18, 2019

Is there DoF and can we disable it?

Fastidioso · May 18, 2019

Nooblet said:
So predictable

There is only ONE 60FPS open world game this gen apart from Rage 2 and that game was cross gen. There is a reason for that. The blur is due to TAA more than 1080P resolution.
Pop ins happen in every game are are more noticeable the faster you can traverse in the game.

To be fair it's 60 fps ...on premium hardware. And even on those, it's not exactly the smoothest 60 fps we have seen on such console. On pc too seem extremely taxing at higher res of 1080p. Not to saying it's not appreciable but why not give the choice for an alternative 4k mode with 30 fps at least? I don't get it.

Fafalada · May 18, 2019

Nooblet said:
Point being draw distance and travel speeds are related.

I'd argue pop-in is travel speed related, draw distance not so much (qualifier here being that it really depends what you're referring to with 'draw-distance' - it seems the term is used for all manner of different things nowadays).

Well that's not really a proper open world in traditional sense tbh, the actual play area is so small as you are limited to rooftops.

That's a pretty random thing to differentiate on. Most open-games are limited to ground-traversal and outdoors and no-one qualifies that as 'not proper open world', even though it's a clear shortcut compared to games that do real verticality/air traversal or seamless indoor/outdoor handling.

Besides - framerate decisions are largely unrelated to something being open world or not - most 'modern' techstacks are just not designed around 60hz updates as a major concern, so the decision is usually made before even making the first concept art. And moreover, especially for workloads in a typical 'AAA' experience just about everything outside of rendering can be largely orthogonal to framerate and the primary reason we don't have easy ways to exploit that, is the last 15 years of codebase evolution.

Dark1x · May 18, 2019

Azurik said:
R2 just makes too many sacrifices to achieve 60fps. Can't remember the Fox engine in MGS V being visually that bad despite being also a massive 60fps openworld on BASE consoles.

Err, MGS5 has less advanced visuals than this by a fair margin.

What is it that you see when you look at this game? I'm having a hard time understanding the complaints.

Pop-in, I get, but the rest? I see a gorgeous looking game.

Fastidioso said:
And even on those, it's not exactly the smoothest 60 fps we have seen on such console.

It kind of is, though, especially on X where I found exactly one area where any dips occurred. It's a lot more stable than Doom 2016 on any platform.

Dphex said:
and i could not disagree more to that...the IQ is blurry like vaseline smear filter and the texture work is awful, there are even ground textures not correctly aligned to each other in the jungle area. there are textures like those "Guacamolito" signs which are like from a Wii U, really low resolution and these are everywhere.

sry but it is what it is, i don´t have tomatoes on my eyes and this game is really blurry IQ and has distractlingly bad textures on the PS4Pro on a 4K TV. Also, the buildings and rocks are super blocky and low poly. this game is not solid visually, don´t know how you could come to such a conclusion tbh, i am really perplexed that someone calls this "clean IQ".

might be cool to have 60 fps but this game, no, it looks awful.

I honestly can't comprehend what you're seeing.

arimanius · May 18, 2019

Been waiting for this analysis so thanks for the video. Been on the fence on getting this for the pro or pc and this kind of game I enjoy more on the consoles. So I'm happy that the pro is basically a solid 60. Downloading now can't wait to play.

Nooblet · May 18, 2019

Fafalada said:
I'd argue pop-in is travel speed related, draw distance not so much (qualifier here being that it really depends what you're referring to with 'draw-distance' - it seems the term is used for all manner of different things nowadays).

That's a pretty random thing to differentiate on. Most open-games are limited to ground-traversal and outdoors and no-one qualifies that as 'not proper open world', even though it's a clear shortcut compared to games that do real verticality/air traversal or seamless indoor/outdoor handling.

Besides - framerate decisions are largely unrelated to something being open world or not - most 'modern' techstacks are just not designed around 60hz updates as a major concern, so the decision is usually made before even making the first concept art. And moreover, especially for workloads in a typical 'AAA' experience just about everything outside of rendering can be largely orthogonal to framerate and the primary reason we don't have easy ways to exploit that, is the last 15 years of codebase evolution.

As you said it yourself draw distance itself is a very ambigous term without proper context. I was more refering to object draw distance rather than the view distance of the vista.

Anyways regarding the nomenclature of open world. For instance we don't consider Deus Ex Mankind Divided to be open world nor do we consider Nier Automata to be open world despite being able to go to a large area without loading and in Deus Ex's case even the interiors. The whole map is separated in two and that's the only loading screen everything else in those sections themselves are load free and it's fairly large. Yet it's considered a "hub based" world and not open world. Why is that?

When it comes to Mirror's Edge you should look at it from the perspective of what the map or the play area is without all the world detail filled it. That is what would the overhead world map look like if you were to observe it as a whole and only see the areas that the player can actually be in.

Is it a seamless area? Or is it tons of interconnected pathways? I feel like the latter is what makes games "hub based" and not open world.

Nooblet · May 18, 2019

Dark1x said:
Err, MGS5 has less advanced visuals than this by a fair margin.

What is it that you see when you look at this game? I'm having a hard time understanding the complaints.

Pop-in, I get, but the rest? I see a gorgeous looking game.

Not to mention the world in MGSV is designed very similar to Farcry 2 as in it's large ahead connected by wide hallways like canyons which you can't traverse. Rather than being a "true" open world (whatever that means lol).

Azurik · May 18, 2019

Dark1x said:
Err, MGS5 has less advanced visuals than this by a fair margin.

What is it that you see when you look at this game? I'm having a hard time understanding the complaints.

Pop-in, I get, but the rest? I see a gorgeous looking game.

I appreciate mgs5 wasn't a graphical monster but it was massive, some areas were quite impressive and it achieved 60fps on base consoles.

R2's IQ is just soft, poor texture quality in some areas, pop in is terrible (RDR2 manages 4K and stays 99.9% pop in free) and the overall look is just not great for me.

The engine is just not very good and it's not very clear why they, at least on midgen, could not offer a higher (CB) res. Yes, the higher res alone wouldn't have changed the look of the game, but just shows that the id tech would have made more sense imo

Dark1x · May 18, 2019

Azurik said:
I appreciate mgs5 wasn't a graphical monster but it was massive, some areas were quite impressive and it achieved 60fps on base consoles.

R2's IQ is just soft, poor texture quality in some areas, pop in is terrible (RDR2 manages 4K and stays 99.9% pop in free) and the overall look is just not great for me.

The engine is just not very good and it's not very clear why they, at least on midgen, could not offer a higher (CB) res. Yes, the higher res alone wouldn't have changed the look of the game, but just shows that the id tech would have made more sense imo

How many id Tech games do we have with an open world?

How fast can your horse move in RDR2?

Nooblet · May 18, 2019

Azurik said:
I appreciate mgs5 wasn't a graphical monster but it was massive, some areas were quite impressive and it achieved 60fps on base consoles.

R2's IQ is just soft, poor texture quality in some areas, pop in is terrible (RDR2 manages 4K and stays 99.9% pop in free) and the overall look is just not great for me.

The engine is just not very good and it's not very clear why they, at least on midgen, could not offer a higher (CB) res. Yes, the higher res alone wouldn't have changed the look of the game, but just shows that the id tech would have made more sense imo

It wasn't as massive as Rage 2.
It was also often designed in chunks where each chunks are connected to each other by what's essentially a wide corridor. If you can remember the canyons in the game, you could never climb them or be on top of them, a lot of time you could be faced with a situation where you had to go to a point that's adjacent to your position on the map but there's a non traversable canyon that's only about 10-20m high in between so you have to go around and follow the path. This canyon also prevents you from directly looking at the other side and blocks your vision. And this path is the only place in that section of the map that you can actually physically be in, this is what the wide corridor is. You don't have this in Rage 2.

Basically MGSV is stretching the FC2 style "open world" map design to its limit where it is very close to an actual open world. But in the end it's still not exactly the same as say Horizon, Farcry 5, AC style open world.

Fastidioso · May 18, 2019

Ugh. The tearing in the cities on pro. I'm not great fan of such stuff. Tearing during the action sequences is hardly noticeable, so I can survive, but in the sequences with low pacing like the cities traversing, it's annoying as hell to see. Maybe a vsync locked with some dips would be preferable, at least in such situations.

SuperYlvis · May 18, 2019

Tearing in 2019?!

Doof · May 18, 2019

DIP AND TEAR

UNTIL IT IS DONE

Spartan IV · May 18, 2019

I've been playing on One X for seven hours and I didn't notice aggressive dips in performance. I'm pretty happy with his 60fps so far.

EeK9X · May 18, 2019

Dark1x said:
That said, based on what I'm seeing on PC, it seems to be very sensitive to resolution - even a 2080ti can't do 4K60 right now without cuts.

You're absolutely right, John. On my rig (1080 Ti/i7-7700K), I had to set the resolution scale to 80% and dial down some settings like shadows, AO and AA in order to achieve a locked 60 fps in "4K".

I've yet to try the Scanline Sync function of RTSS on Rage 2. Since its API is Vulkan, I can't go with my preferred solution for low input latency with no tearing: Fast Sync combined with fps cap.

SS works best with less demanding titles, so I'm not expecting much. Any tips, other than enabling VSync in-game (which I can't stand, due to the added input latency)?

Deleted member 4970 · May 18, 2019

EeK9X said:
Since its API is Vulkan, I can't go with my preferred solution for low input latency with no tearing: Fast Sync combined with fps cap.

Oh wow, duh! I didn't realize my GSYNC wasn't working! No wonder why it felt weird at times! I'll try to dial in a steady framerate now with this knowledge instead of letting it run wild!

Sub Boss · May 18, 2019

No dips? Very, very solid

Dark1x · May 18, 2019

SuperYlvis said:
Tearing in 2019?!

Yes. Better than triple buffering in this case since tears are limited to the top of the image and are uncommon. Triple buffering would introduce more noticeable judder.

Smokey · May 18, 2019

No HDR is such a wasted opportunity here given its style.

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