General Gaming Best Gaming Graphics of 2020, Best Games of 2020, and Best PC Games of 2020 (Digital Foundry) and Best Graphics/Technology of 2020 (NX Gamer)

[crispy4000]

 

[stepee]

I was kind of geeking out just last night over how damn good Miles looks with the new performance RT mode. It’s really something. I would say it’s placement right behind Cyberpunk (running on high end pc) is accurate!

[SaysWho?]

I'm REALLY curious about Miles Morales now, graphically. I already own it so it's just a matter of getting around to it after Demon's Souls, but that's impressive, particularly for a cross-gen game.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

 

[legend]

These were good picks.

[crispy4000]

I’m noticing that Ghosts didn’t get a mention.  Snubbed?  Never played it, but it looks pretty good to me.

[SimpleG]

15 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

I’m noticing that Ghosts didn’t get a mention.  Snubbed?  Never played it, but it looks pretty good to me.

Then you didnt watch the video

[stepee]

I’d still move Ghosts into the top 10, counting it running at 60 on ps5. I’d easily replace Doom with it. Valhalla on pc/ps5/xsx too.

[crispy4000]

54 minutes ago, SimpleG said:

Then you didnt watch the video

 

Watched it yesterday, must have forgotten it was in the honorables.

[Nokt]

Is it really that hard to timestamp long videos. It seems rare that youtubers do this and it makes viewing experience so much better

[stepee]

 

Honestly, I’d probably take out Minecraft RTX too as while path tracing is in of itself impressive, the base it’s on top of is just so simple it’s hard to really appreciate it visually when compared with what’s out now.

 

Quake 2 RTX already did path tracing anyway so it doesn’t seem as much of a first to me either.

 

Doom Eternal I would move to honorable mentions because while I see their point, I don’t really count performance beyond 60fps when ranking graphics. It’s a great looking game but nothing about it particularly stands out in any way to me beyond that and other games just look better.

It’s really optimized for 60fps and it’s impressive what they achieved, but it is optimized for 60fps on last gen base consoles and that still probably holds it back. Maybe we’ll talk if they actually add ray tracing as promised.

 

I’d replace it with Watch Dogs Legion (with on a good PC caveat like with Cyberpunk), which I’d be surprised wasn’t mentioned if it probably wasn’t just forgotten already.

 

On RT Ultra, and yes especially at night when it’s raining, it definitely looks like a next (current) gen game. The ray traced reflection volume is up there with Miles, but with higher fidelity and with cars also being reflective. I don’t think water is reflective in Miles either like it is in Legion on Ultra.

 

If the game ran on like anything at 4kdlss/60 Ultra/RT then I’d probably rank it second behind Cyberpunk. As it is, I’d move it back a little but would still place it high up, I’m sure if you have a 3080ish, a really high end cpu, and a vrr display its close enough!

 

I would probably rank it like:

 

10 - Ori 2 (PC/XSX)

9 - Ghosts (PS5)

8 - Immortals: Fenyx (PC/XSX/PS5)

7 -  Demons Souls (PS5)

6 - Valhalla (PC/XSX/PS5)

5 - Watch Dogs: Legion (high end pc)

4 - TLOU 2 (PS4 Pro/PS5)

3 - MS Flight Simulator (some PC built in 2024)

2 - Miles Morales (PS5)

1 - Cyberpunk (high end pc)

 

Only one I haven’t played a decent amount of is TLOU2 because at this point I’m being stubborn and waiting for a ps5 patch/release. I assume if that’s not far off then it could kick something out of the top 3 there (which I would also consider the top 3 overall right now). But yeah for that one I’m kinda guessing based on videos/pictures but I imagine it’s about right.

 

Removed Alyx not because I don’t think it’s as impressive looking as the others but just because I can’t compare it. You could probably say it’s the best looking game there is just based on it being a great looking AAA game that is in VR.

 

The only way I could try to compare it is to view it flat and try to see how it would compete with the others if it weren’t a vr game, but it is, and you can’t play it flat, so I’d move it to honorable mentions with that as the reason.

 

Similarity, I think that you could easily make flight simulator number one, maybe for years to come, if you are looking at “what looks most like real life” as the bar. And there’s a lot of cool stuff going on with the clouds and lighting. 

 

But it’s difficult to compare just by the nature of being a flight sim high up in the air where you can use really low detailed objects in large scale to mimick real life, the design really only works for a flight sim and it all kind of breaks down once you get too close to anything.

 

It also runs like shit on pretty much anything which should hopefully iron out when it moves to DX12 and gets better core utilization and adds DLSS both which will happen next year. But this list is for 2020.

 

I’d replace Alyx with Immortals which made me stop and look at the world for a bit a LOT, really really pretty game when the lighting is right, and it’s right a lot of the time.

 

Nothing especially stands out tech wise, but it is a AAA game using modern tech that’s done in the art style that it is. There’s not much of that out there and it’s really a sight to see at times. Props for the draw distance as well.

 

Honorable mentions: 

 

Half Life Alyx

Cold War (with extra points for doing the 60fps/RT/dynamic 4k combo on XSX/PS5)

Dreams

Minecraft RTX

FF7 Remake

Crysis Remastered PC current patch

Death Stranding/Horizon PC

Sackboy/Astrobot

 

 

[SaysWho?]

As an aside, I've been watching a lot of the Digital Foundry videos, from the exclusives to the cross-platform comparisons. The way many on the board made it sound, the PS5 should have been having issues, but it seems to be the better performer for multiplats, from especially Valhalla to trying to play Cyberpunk to certain spots in NBA 2k, and hitting 60fps with higher frequency.

 

Strange considering all the concern leading up to launch, though.

[Zaku3]

3 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

As an aside, I've been watching a lot of the Digital Foundry videos, from the exclusives to the cross-platform comparisons. The way many on the board made it sound, the PS5 should have been having issues, but it seems to be the better performer for multiplats, from especially Valhalla to trying to play Cyberpunk to certain spots in NBA 2k, and hitting 60fps with higher frequency.

 

Strange considering all the concern leading up to launch, though.

 

Haven't been keeping up with next gen news but aren't they more or less equal?

[Xbob42]

3 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

As an aside, I've been watching a lot of the Digital Foundry videos, from the exclusives to the cross-platform comparisons. The way many on the board made it sound, the PS5 should have been having issues, but it seems to be the better performer for multiplats, from especially Valhalla to trying to play Cyberpunk to certain spots in NBA 2k, and hitting 60fps with higher frequency.

 

Strange considering all the concern leading up to launch, though.

The PS5 should absolutely be getting slightly beaten by the Series X in the vast majority of multiplatform games. There's got to be something rotten or not yet finished with the XSX, because there's no reason it should be so consistently behind, and often with really bizarre issues that aren't just a performance difference. Like in the Series S, Cyberpunk would just straight up freeze for several seconds. This tells me it's not a performance delta, but an actual problem. Either that or the PS5 is just receiving more dev time on every single game, which seems unlikely. Hopefully whatever is wrong can be fixed, because it's getting a little sad.

And we know there's no magic secret sauce in the PS5, because in comparisons with PCs, there's a completely predictable power delta. If the GPU in the PC is 20% slower than the PS5, it will run 20% worse, and vice versa.

[legend]

9 hours ago, stepee said:

I’d still move Ghosts into the top 10, counting it running at 60 on ps5. I’d easily replace Doom with it. Valhalla on pc/ps5/xsx too.

 

5 hours ago, stepee said:

Doom Eternal I would move to honorable mentions because while I see their point, I don’t really count performance beyond 60fps when ranking graphics. It’s a great looking game but nothing about it particularly stands out in any way to me beyond that and other games just look better.

It’s really optimized for 60fps and it’s impressive what they achieved, but it is optimized for 60fps on last gen base consoles and that still probably holds it back. Maybe we’ll talk if they actually add ray tracing as promised.

 

I disagree if for no other reason than I want to encourage devs and publishers to focus on performance first  It's a technical marvel just how well it performs  (which I know you agree with) and scales and it *feels* so good because of it.

[Dre801]

I was very impressed with TLoU2.  That game looked better than it had a right to on even a base PS4(where I played it); I hope it gets some PS5 enhancements.

[stepee]

46 minutes ago, legend said:

 

 

I disagree if for no other reason than I want to encourage devs and publishers to focus on performance first  It's a technical marvel just how well it performs  (which I know you agree with) and scales and it *feels* so good because of it.

 

Yeah, it should probably tie with Ori really as they both belong for similar reasons. Scalability being one, Ori 2 on switch looks amazing and runs at 60fps and also runs at 4k 120fps on SX. They are also both just examples of smart design to efficiently look rather amazing. 

 

It’s just..I kinda don’t like how Doom Eternal looks so I’m biased :P

 

It nails what it’s trying to do but I’m not really a fan of what it’s trying to do.

[Ghost_MH]

Teardown deserved it's honorable mention here. That game doesn't get enough love. For an early access games, it's so well done, gorgeous to look at, and incredibly fun. It's $17 on Steam right now. Everyone should pick it up.

[crispy4000]

17 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

And we know there's no magic secret sauce in the PS5, because in comparisons with PCs, there's a completely predictable power delta. If the GPU in the PC is 20% slower than the PS5, it will run 20% worse, and vice versa.

Do we know that for certain?  I’m curious what games you’re thinking about that illustrate that so concretely.

 

Typically console GPUs punch above their weight class.  It would be atypical if PS5 (or Series X) didn’t.
 

PS5 also has variable clockrates for both it and the CPU.  Wouldn’t that make like-for-like comparisons less directly scalable with desktop PCs?  In theory, you’d expect more fluctuations on the PS5.

 

It’s still early days for both these machines as well.  Devs are still coming to terms with the new tools these consoles offer (high speed I/O, velocity architecture, geometry engine, etc).  And those will see software updates too.  So what might seem true at first today could change in the future.

[Xbob42]

6 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Do we know that for certain?  I’m curious what games you’re thinking about that illustrate that so concretely.

 

Typically console GPUs punch above their weight class.  It would be atypical if PS5 (or Series X) didn’t.

Eh, that seems to be less and less the case these days as consoles become closer and closer to just being PCs.

Here's one example from Digital Foundry:

 

From other comparisons I've seen, this seems to hold true pretty much across the board on cross-platform games.

[number305]

20 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Eh, that seems to be less and less the case these days as consoles become closer and closer to just being PCs.

Here's one example from Digital Foundry:

 

From other comparisons I've seen, this seems to hold true pretty much across the board on cross-platform games.

I really don't feel like we have seen what the ps5 or XSX can do. I think both companies rushed the hardware and didn't get the software tools to developers in time (maybe somewhat because of covid). I think in a year we will see games on another level for both systems. Of course they will never be able to compete with high end pc's. 

[Xbob42]

My point wasn't whether or not they could compete with high-end PCs, but rather the XSX by all means should be outperforming (slightly) the PS5 in most of the cases where it's falling behind, so I agree. Something seems rushed or broken, hopefully only temporarily.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Eh, that seems to be less and less the case these days as consoles become closer and closer to just being PCs.

Here's one example from Digital Foundry:

 

From other comparisons I've seen, this seems to hold true pretty much across the board on cross-platform games.

 

Cross-manufacturer comparison.  You'd really have to look at an equivalent AMD Navi PC card to see what the console architecture is helping (or not).

[SaysWho?]

Developers were praising the PS5 architecture to high heaven prior to its release, but I feel like message boards didn't want to believe it for some reason?

 

Naughty Dog's praising it? Meh, Sony dev.

 

Epic's praising it? Meh, they don't mean it they were paid off.

 

Digital Foundry says every dev they spoke to is "evangelizing" the PS5 architecture? Nah man, look at this rumor from this guy who mostly talks about Xbox news.

 

 

It was honestly weird. I don't think there was any decent conversation about it because of the concern trolling and how it was destined to not be as strong for reasons despite the opposite reaction from developers themselves. This was from JS:

 

Quote

"Sony has dropped the ball and there's going to be like weeks and weeks, if not months and months, especially with Corona disrupting everything, of people just talking about how the Xbox Series X is the most powerful console and it's beating the PS5 in every single way. Meanwhile, I'm getting texts and DMs, even today as this was going on, from developers being like 'This is such a shame, the PS5 is so superior in all these other ways that they're not actually able to message right now or can't talk about right now'. I heard from at least three different people in the past couple of hours since the Cerny talk being like 'The PS5 is actually like the more superior piece of hardware in a lot of different ways despite what you're seeing in these paper spec sheets'."

 

This should have been expected  

[crispy4000]

I don't think anything should have been expected, given how little gameplay we saw pre-release from both consoles.  Direct gameplay footage comparisons came absurdly late.  Some games like Watch Dogs were even shown running on Series S before Series X.

 

I'm mostly surprised by how close the two platforms are to each other in the cross-get multiplat stuff.  Almost every game has the same framerate and resolution target, with relatively small performance discrepancies distinguishing them.  It's refreshing compared to the wider gaps we saw with PS4/XBO and Pro/OneX.  It just means that the other distinguishing factors (exclusives, subscriptions, controllers, price, storage, etc) matter for even more.

 

Even if a performance victor is crowned definitively, it won't be decisive enough to make the other look like a bad buy.  By the time it could matter, we may already be focused on mid-cycle refreshes.

 

The only major disappointment thus far IMO is Series S.  Too many cross-gen games and last-gen ports are opting for 1080p, which is a bad sign.  There's no way it won't feel like dead weight to devs within a few years. 

[stepee]

It could just be that due to better tools and the like that PS5 is simply easier to get off the ground running on and eventually when both systems are operating full tilt the XSX shows it’s small performance advantage.

 

Either way due to them being close enough on paper and myriad of factors the main take away always should have been it doesn’t really matter. They are both going to be very close this gen probably trading blows back and forth mostly on 3rd party games more depending on the developer than anything else.

 

The factors to consider this gen are more robust than who just runs the games better overall. It’s about features and library. Better loading times times, dualsense, and God of War 2 or quick resume, gamepass, and Halo infinite. That’s really where the differences are.

 

I agree with the crispinator that the only performance that is concerning is Series S. It’s putting out bare minimum res already in a lot of games and we are at the cross gen stage. I’m still not happy with the idea of it’s existence but we will see.

[SaysWho?]

2 hours ago, stepee said:

It could just be that due to better tools and the like that PS5 is simply easier to get off the ground running on and eventually when both systems are operating full tilt the XSX shows it’s small performance advantage.

 

Either way due to them being close enough on paper and myriad of factors the main take away always should have been it doesn’t really matter. They are both going to be very close this gen probably trading blows back and forth mostly on 3rd party games more depending on the developer than anything else.

 

The factors to consider this gen are more robust than who just runs the games better overall. It’s about features and library. Better loading times times, dualsense, and God of War 2 or quick resume, gamepass, and Halo infinite. That’s really where the differences are.

 

I agree with the crispinator that the only performance that is concerning is Series S. It’s putting out bare minimum res already in a lot of games and we are at the cross gen stage. I’m still not happy with the idea of it’s existence but we will see.

 

I don't get why Series S is having so many issues. I was under the impression that it was simply a digital Xbox Series.

[Moa]

I really think flight sim deserved the #1 spot.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, SaysWho? said:

 

I don't get why Series S is having so many issues. I was under the impression that it was simply a digital Xbox Series.

The GPU is ~3x as weak and it has less RAM.  But the CPU and SSD tech is the same as Series X.

[SaysWho?]

15 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

The GPU is ~3x as weak and it has less RAM.  But the CPU and SSD tech is the same as Series X.

 

Any reason why the insides are different? Isn't the PS5 the same for both, just digital or physical/digital?

[SimpleG]

22 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Any reason why the insides are different? Isn't the PS5 the same for both, just digital or physical/digital?

It’s meant to be a low end entry model.

[SaysWho?]

5 minutes ago, SimpleG said:

It’s meant to be a low end entry model.

 

The whole time I thought the damn thing was cheaper because it had no disc drive; I didn't know lower specs were also the reason.

[crispy4000]

2 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

The whole time I thought the damn thing was cheaper because it had no disc drive; I didn't know lower specs were also the reason.

 

Some would say it forced Sony down to $400 for the all-digital edition.  Series S is $300.

[SaysWho?]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Some would say it forced Sony down to $400 for the all-digital edition.  Series S is $300.

 

That's what I mean; I thought that was the sole reason. 

[crispy4000]

7 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

That's what I mean; I thought that was the sole reason. 

 

Would've been very odd if Series S could be $200 cheaper than Series X with only the disc drive and storage space lacking.  It's surprising enough that Sony was able to answer at $400.

They pretty much had to, given that Microsoft decided to deceptively market the thing as a 1440p 60fps+ machine.