DF Direct Weekly #168: Starfield Series S 60FPS, New PS2 Emu For PS5, ARM Windows Gaming Disappoints

Some practical tests in this week's episode of DF Direct as Rich examines the modded performance modes cropping up for the Xbox Series S version of Starfield - while his £2,000 investment in a Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X Elite translates into some truly awful gaming. Meanwhile, John's been checking out the new PlayStation 2 and PSP emulators for PS5, while Alex isn't particularly happy about Game Pass versions of PC games missing DLSS and other upscaler support present on Steam and EGS releases.

NOTE: In the Snapdragon X Elite section, both Control and Dark Souls 3 are running with Auto SR. These are two titles that automatically invoke the technology, which may explain why native 1080p is not available. All tests conducted with mains power.

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0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:22 News 01: Starfield Series S high frame-rate mods tested!
0:09:26 News 02: PS2 and PSP emulation on PS5 analyzed
0:24:58 News 03: Snapdragon X Elite gaming performance disappoints
0:44:34 News 04: Still Wakes The Deep ships without FSR, DLSS, XeSS on Game Pass
0:54:17 News 05: LRG3 showcase features re-releases, remasters
1:05:04 Supporter Q1: How can I age as gracefully as the Switch?
1:13:55 Supporter Q2: Would you still recommend the Steam Deck over the new ROG Ally X?
1:16:46 Supporter Q3: Could the PS5 last 8 or 9 years as Sony’s flagship console platform?
1:23:25 Supporter Q4: Do you think a 1080p screen could be too much for a next-gen Switch?
1:28:46 Supporter Q5: Do you think any unannounced first party games will be released around launch for Switch 2?

[Coolfaceable]

"Dark Souls 3 is not exactly a highly challenging game"
- Richard Leadbetter, Pro Gamer

[edward]

44:34 Hey, Nightdive Kex engine developer Edward here;
I'm not sure what's going on with Still Wakes The Deep and the engine they have, but the GDK on Windows *doesn't* have anything different that requires an entirely different code path. It is unknown why these developers somehow have special requirements, but objectively none exist. Especially in Kex, winstore GDK builds are identical compile targets to Steam and GOG on a system level. You get the same graphics APIs and everything, it even still runs on top of SDL2.
There's one exception in that we disable exclusive full-screen due to background pop-ups dialogs (and I'm not entirely sure if that's even still relevant, we should go back and retest that, and other platforms have their own issues with exclusive fullscreen as well) but that has no logical effect on things like DLSS. Their reasoning doesn't really make any sense from my perspective.

Edit: Unless the real problem with winstore GDK is actually Epic themselves.

[kcmsterpce]

50:41 the frustration of not knowing if a button registers after clicking it was hilarious. The anger of such a simple process being broken is just gold.

[Foas]

12:30 Another thing to mention with these recent PSP and PS2 emulated releases, if you change the system language to Japanese or Korean you also get the JP and KR releases when they're available

[NeoGamer]

10:43 Lego Star Wars on PS5 is the PSP version, not PS2.

[strangevision]

I think John hasn't checked the PS1, PSP emulated games in a while. PAL/NTSC have been available for a long time and there are a lot of other options they've been added.

Not everything has been good, there's a weird default to 4:3 for 16:10 bug, but there have been some good options like analog dead zone, button mapping etc. They've even patched in the PS3 content for PSP Resistance.

[cyberrb]

I saw a former Nintendo NST employee (he's now working for another company) talk about how, when he worked at Nintendo, they had a motto: If you are going to make a game that you expect to sell half a million units, budget it so it cost the equivalent of those sales.

Nintendo's budget control is crazy – though it helps not being stationed in the US, where each and every role costs a buttload of money (Japan is much cheaper in comparison, due to the vastly lower cost of living).

[thanksbetotap]

The real reason why most games don’t even launch on Windows on Arm is because anti-cheat kernel modules are not yet ported to Arm. Microsoft just announced that 3 of those including BattlEye are coming soon.

Valve dealt with the same issues in the early days of Proton, but they eventually got through them.

[plume...]

1:14 Alex genuinely made me laugh when he quickly just blurted out "King!" Well done mate :)

[twocityfoodies]

The Sony emulation for PS1/2 is baffling for some of their decisions. John is right here. The only thing I can think of is that Sony may have some internal play data from the PS+ service that while people online say they want these classics on PS+, in reality, they aren't played enough or by enough subscribers to make the investment into better emulators.

[infasis]

If your son or daughter is going away to collage make sure you buy them a Qualcomm powered PC. The Surface looks all shiny and cool, so they'll be really happy with it, but that night when they decide they're going to waste time playing videogames on their fancy new computer, they'll come to find studying is the better option :^)

[imo]

ah Elden Ring Switch 2 port day 1.
Returns of switch 2 for repairs will be at the all time high

[fordgtguy]

When Xbox Series X runs PS2 games better than PS5, that's comedy in itself.

[ColeFellner]

I hope a dedicated Retrotink 4k video is in the pipeline! 🤞

[JB.zero.zero.]

I think it's great for S owners to have options, not everybody has disposable income to spend on more powerful systems John 😊

[venares]

Rich shaking his head as soon as Bubsy is mentioned. He ain't having it. 😂

[daltonk]

For Starfield for Series S, If it's at the same FSR 2 percentage as Series S at 1440p, the 720p resolution is likely running at a native resolution of 800x450. That's likely why it looks so... rough. It's about 62.5% of the target resolution.

[brendanfalvy]

It strikes me that Microsoft used to have a UI that was ideally suited to handheld devices, why they haven’t resurrected the Metro UI format for gaming scenarios is beyond me. Maybe there’s something I’m not aware of here, but im under the impression it’s that Metro is still around in windows 10 as an option. No clue about 11, I stopped being a home windows user years ago, but they’ve dropped the ball big here.

It was a good phone UI and could be a great handheld UI

[Schraiber]

Microsoft did so much better a job of backwards compatibility/legacy hardware. Wasn't perfect by any means but they at least guaranteed that OG Xbox games would be upres and work well. It's a huge huge shame they stopped the BC effort. So many great games that could be brought forward still

[ssjkakarotttv]

With how the PS2 Emulation games seem to be so far for PS5, I sincerely hope it does end up getting fixed down the line. But one thing I am hoping for those PS2 Classics is the Original PS2 God of Wars being put onto PS5 because those games need some preservation cause they are awesome.