DF Direct Weekly #73: Kratos Hits Xbox, Series S Memory Boost, RTX 4090 Massively Fast?

PlayStation icon Kratos arrives on ALL Xbox consoles in one of the most unlikeliest stories we've ever seen, while Xbox Series S gets more memory delivered to game-makers via a development kit update. Meanwhile, John, Rich and Alex discuss the seemingly incredible perf boosts we should expect from the next-gen Nvidia GPUs, while Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins gets a PC AA/DLSS upgrade. All this - AND MORE - in this episode of DF Direct Weekly!

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:57 News 01: War Gods Zeus of Child hits Xbox consoles!
00:13:59 News 02: Xbox Series S to receive memory boost in new GDK
00:25:28 News 03: Lovelace GPUs reportedly very, very fast
00:35:59 News 04: Stranger of Paradise gets DLSS upgrade
00:38:58 News 05: Return to Castle Wolfenstein gets new PC release
00:51:59 News 06: Analogue Pocket gets beta 1.1 firmware
00:55:39 DF Content Discussion: Upcoming DF Retro projects!
00:57:44 DF Supporter Q1: What does John think of the new RetroTINK 5X updates?
01:02:59 DF Supporter Q2: Does HDR impact game performance?
01:04:22 DF Supporter Q3: How do low-power systems like the Steam Deck slot into DF coverage?
01:11:25 DF Supporter Q4: How did you enjoy your vacations?

[gamergod]

"you press buttons and the score goes up until you die" I'm glad that developers are finally taking video gaming back to its roots.

[Schraiber]

I can't believe Microsoft has finally made the dream of downloading more RAM possible

[DinnerIsDelayed]

The analysis on War Gods: Zeus of Child was absolutely HILARIOUS 😂 😂

[jmi_music]

I LOVE the way Rich sounds genuinely perplexed that the podcast is on its 73rd episode

[CyborgNinjaJesus]

Unity stubbornly continues to lock the splash screen customization behind their paid tiers, and that means that the first thing you see when booting up one of those asset flips is the made in Unity screen. I don't know why they keep doing this, they are literally associating their brand just to low budget projects, it makes no sense.

[djm]

not bothered about ray tracing on an 'S' i feel a stable 60fps or better resolutions is more important.

[YT-CesarB]

Kratos on Xbox looks like PS8 graphics

[MrMolchester]

Deck 40fps optimisations would be really useful. I don't play anything AAA on deck above 40.

[DEMediaDrive]

Should have made Series S 12GB for $329 at launch. This way all the One X games would have been covered.

[shodan]

Imo you don't need a reason to talk about Return To Castle Wolfenstein. Its just a fantastically fun game and I wish it would get a port to more systems and/or a remake.

[Zexx]

I found perhaps even more interesting the section on "improved performance for graphics allocations" talking about a problem that slowed down these processes, maybe this fix with the extra ram available could give a little boost to series s...

[lyconxero]

One of the cool things about the Steam Deck is that it does support 40FPS which is a nice medium between 30 and 60 FPS and would be my preference if it's stable on the system. I can understand that it's maybe harder to capture games like this but I would say if the game runs at 60FPS on consoles then I'd want to see it reach 40FPS on the Steam Deck but of course if it's only 30 FPS on console then 30 FPS on the Deck should be fine.

[spacechannelfiver]

My Gamepass for PC was broken for ages, couldn't download anything. It turned out the Xbox app had somehow decided to run a different locale than my system, once I fixed that it worked; but it took multiple installs, uninstalls, reboots and messing around in the Registry before I found it. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole if it wasn't such a good deal. It's even worse than Epic Game Store and that's saying something.

[startedtech]

That Kratos game looks like one of the endless crap games on the Play Store. Hilarious it wound up on Xbox lol.

[hughJ]

In terms of the 'U' shape of PC hardware costs over the course of the past 30 years, you can't overlook that in the 90s those high prices were paired with very short periods of value. A high-end PC could cost you a few thousand dollars, but within 6-12 months the new hardware would be 2x as fast. You paid a premium and had very fast depreciation. Today's hardware doesn't scale that fast anymore, so buying a high-end PC or component means you can either use it for longer, or resell it to offset some of the price. A $3000 PC in 1998 was maybe worth $500 by 2000 and was landfill-worthy by 2002. Today a $3000 PC is still going to be a high-end PC even after 4-5 years.

The other issue here is the troubling fact that the PC platform today can hardly be considered a platform anymore. In the late 90s that high price of ownership meant you were at least getting access to a library of content and a class of experiences that you couldn't get anywhere else at any price point. Today those thousands of dollars are buying you extra graphics sliders for lackluster console ports. I think the crypto booms of 2017 and 2021 have probably masked the true state of health of the PC gaming market. If I were Nvidia I would be concerned about the future of the high-end discrete GPU market -- you can't ship high volumes every year of $1000+ Assassin's Creed accelerators.

[TheGameLecturer]

The problem with the new GPUs is that they're probably going to be heavy consumers of electricity to compensate for how hard it is to miniaturize components even more.

[sonnieslim]

I’m always curious how dangerous it is to work at digital foundry because Rich is always so shocked that they are having yet another weekly show lol

[lazaromartinez]

Kratos on the Xbox fighting on the arena of Geonosis from attack of the clones. You can't make this stuff up, man

[masti]

Looking forward to the 40series. Currently using a 1060 laptop. A 4070 laptop is going to be massive upgrade!

[JerryFlowersIII]

In my book, if a GPU is over compensating with power usage and heat dissipation then it's just not worth considering.
It feels like they're making up for not being good enough.
But also my power here isn't great and my room cooling isn't great soo...
Yeah I'll go for a more efficient/ lower TDP card.