The "technical press" deserves more credit for the ways they have made video games objectively better. You might think of them as the people that allow us to make informed purchasing decisions by determining which version of GTAV has more blades of grass, but time after time their reporting has lead to games looking, running, and playing better.
Let's start by looking at one of the most widely known, Digital Foundry. About 5 years ago, Halo Reach was added to the backwards compatibility program for Xbox One. John Linneman analyzed it in the following video:
Most Xbox 360 games ran the same or slightly better on Xbox One, but by using objective measurements John pointed out that Halo Reach ran significantly worse. If I recall correctly, Microsoft's backwards compatibility testing at the time was little more than having the game running on original hardware on one TV next to another television that had the game running on an Xbox One. The tester would glance back and forth between the two TVs and determine if the game ran "good enough" to release. This feedback from Digital Foundry resulted in Microsoft reevaluating how they tested games and caused them to create their own tools, similar to what Digital Foundry developed internally, to objectively measure performance and ultimately release better performing games.
Another thing I appreciate about the technical press is their ability to articulate aspects of a game's visual presentation that an average video game player like myself can recognize but not express in words eloquently. For example, when Halo Infinite gameplay was shown for the first time many people here were not impressed. People said it "looked bad", "looked last gen", and "looked flat", but none of that feedback is particularly constructive or useful to a game developer. Then Alex Battaglia from Digital Foundry posted this video:
Alex explains in great detail Halo Infinite's the various issues with the quality of its global illumination, ambient occlusion, shadows, volumetric lighting, etcetera that all add up to the game ultimately looking underwhelming. In December, 343 Industries posted a blog explaining the improvements they've been making to the game's graphics and they touch on every single thing Alex brought up. There is no doubt they watched his video and took the feedback to heart.
Something else I appreciate about Digital Foundry in particular is that they often reach out to the developers directly with their findings so they can start looking into problems before the video hits. They talk about this in the recent Gears 5: Hivebusters video.
But I don't want to make this only about Digital Foundry. Smaller outfits like VG Tech do a great job looking at games that Digital Foundry doesn't, such as lower-profile titles, ports for older hardware, patches for GAAS games, and backwards compatible titles.
I want to recognize television reviewers like Rtings.com and HDTVTest. They not only provide optimal picture settings for video games, but they discover issues with TVs and report it directly to the manufacturers so it can be addressed with a patch.
I also want to highlight Adam Fairclough, Restera user EvilBoris, for his amazing analysis of HDR in video games.
Finally I want to give some recognition to everyone that benchmarks PC hardware and keeps manufacturers honest about the actual performance they are delivering.
Let's start by looking at one of the most widely known, Digital Foundry. About 5 years ago, Halo Reach was added to the backwards compatibility program for Xbox One. John Linneman analyzed it in the following video:
Most Xbox 360 games ran the same or slightly better on Xbox One, but by using objective measurements John pointed out that Halo Reach ran significantly worse. If I recall correctly, Microsoft's backwards compatibility testing at the time was little more than having the game running on original hardware on one TV next to another television that had the game running on an Xbox One. The tester would glance back and forth between the two TVs and determine if the game ran "good enough" to release. This feedback from Digital Foundry resulted in Microsoft reevaluating how they tested games and caused them to create their own tools, similar to what Digital Foundry developed internally, to objectively measure performance and ultimately release better performing games.
Another thing I appreciate about the technical press is their ability to articulate aspects of a game's visual presentation that an average video game player like myself can recognize but not express in words eloquently. For example, when Halo Infinite gameplay was shown for the first time many people here were not impressed. People said it "looked bad", "looked last gen", and "looked flat", but none of that feedback is particularly constructive or useful to a game developer. Then Alex Battaglia from Digital Foundry posted this video:
Alex explains in great detail Halo Infinite's the various issues with the quality of its global illumination, ambient occlusion, shadows, volumetric lighting, etcetera that all add up to the game ultimately looking underwhelming. In December, 343 Industries posted a blog explaining the improvements they've been making to the game's graphics and they touch on every single thing Alex brought up. There is no doubt they watched his video and took the feedback to heart.
Something else I appreciate about Digital Foundry in particular is that they often reach out to the developers directly with their findings so they can start looking into problems before the video hits. They talk about this in the recent Gears 5: Hivebusters video.
But I don't want to make this only about Digital Foundry. Smaller outfits like VG Tech do a great job looking at games that Digital Foundry doesn't, such as lower-profile titles, ports for older hardware, patches for GAAS games, and backwards compatible titles.
I want to recognize television reviewers like Rtings.com and HDTVTest. They not only provide optimal picture settings for video games, but they discover issues with TVs and report it directly to the manufacturers so it can be addressed with a patch.
I also want to highlight Adam Fairclough, Restera user EvilBoris, for his amazing analysis of HDR in video games.
Finally I want to give some recognition to everyone that benchmarks PC hardware and keeps manufacturers honest about the actual performance they are delivering.
