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Digital Foundry: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - Digital Foundry Tech Review - The Next Big Leap For PS5?

Senua

Member
Come again, is this supposed to be an implication that its empty (Video below)? Anyway, I will play SM2 and enjoy it and yet be critical of its visual and tech in display. Another thing John didn't go into is the NPC characters in the street, from what i have seen, they are pretty lackluster. There's so many thing John just glossed over that would have added to the quality and depth of this video. Building textures, LOD pop in, geometry, etc.

Missed opportunity to clarify the visual fidelity of the game.


I think there is just so much stuff coming out ATM DF are rushing their videos somewhat.

Alex's Pc video of Forza missed out massive issues like the downgraded trackside detail compared to xbox
 

shamoomoo

Member
Add new RT feature, or maybe path tracing, they show how cdproject super weak at optimisation
At that point,the game would be like a CG movie. Spider-Man 2 already has muscle deformation and minor improvements to foliage and the other stuff in the city would be like playing "Spider-Man:no way home" in game form.
 
"Way more impressive"? Definitely not. Better looking characters? Perhaps (though Peter's hair looks better than just about any hair in FW), there is always raytracing on (Forbidden West isn't taxed like this), and SM2 has to deal with more npcs/traffic. Loading is also faster in SM2 (Forbidden West isn't a slouch, though)!

The bottom line is we can appreciate one without playing down the other, because both games are impressive and do things the other does not.
One thing Forbidden West does better is the level of geometry details thanks to the incredible vegetation system. This is where the game can be more impressive if you appreciate how expensive vegetation is for a hardware to run at this level. But SM2 is better in all others (technical) aspects IMO.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
One thing Forbidden West does better is the level of geometry details thanks to the incredible vegetation system. This is where the game can be more impressive if you appreciate how expensive vegetation is for a hardware to run at this level. But SM2 is better in all others (technical) aspects IMO.
This is a fair assessment, for the most part. I actually think Forbidden West's foliage and environment textures will be hard for nearly any game to top!
 
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8BiTw0LF

Banned
This time there will be no complaints about the puddles, right? xDD, amazing what Insomniac has achieved with this Spiderman 2.

JF5d56N.gif
On a 3 year old $399 console...

Insomniac are wizards!

Magic Dnd GIF by Nick Sazani
 

freefornow

Gold Member
No framerate/frametime graphs? That's DF's bread and butter (including 4000000x zoom).
John couldnt bring himself to include them? Leaving them for someone else to take the flak? Poor Oliver or Tom.
 
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DanielG165

Member
For those saying SM2 looks similar to SM1 and Miles Morales, I disagree. Insomniac are squeezing every last ounce of performance out of the PS5 with this latest entry, and you can certainly tell. Even Spider-Man remastered doesn’t look as good, except perhaps maxed out completely on PC. Otherwise, a PS4 would’ve exploded trying to run even one scene from this game.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
Insomniac solved the "ray tracing reflections running at 60fps on a big open-world with incredible fast travel" problem on consoles. No other studios come close. At this point they could make money on selling their engine to others instead of using badly optimized UE5 engine.
Yeah, but their buildings are "bland", so that wouldn't happen....

In all seriousness, agreed. They've crafted yet another technical marvel and are showing many others how it should be done! I expect Wolverine to raise the bar once more.
 

Zuzu

Member
Definitely playing this at 40fps. Insomniac’s engine handles lower framerates better than most. I wish more devs in general would give us a 40fps option (seems like mostly just Sony’s studios and maybe a few third party games).

The motion blur they use in R&C: Rift Apart is top of the class and makes 40fps nice to play. 40fps is a good way to play their games 👍
 
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sinnergy

Member
Better ray-tracing , awesome , and people say Ray-tracing is crap on AMD, just shows the effort by devs vs Nvidia support.
 

TxKnight7

Member
For those saying SM2 looks similar to SM1 and Miles Morales, I disagree. Insomniac are squeezing every last ounce of performance out of the PS5 with this latest entry, and you can certainly tell. Even Spider-Man remastered doesn’t look as good, except perhaps maxed out completely on PC. Otherwise, a PS4 would’ve exploded trying to run even one scene from this game.
From the Video
" I think the tech powering Spider-Man 2 is excellent, and a nice evolution of Insomniac's work on prior games. While it doesn't completely rewrite the visual identity of the game, what's here looks great and there are noticeable leaps over the last-generation games.
"
it still very much looks like the prior games artistically, but once you actually get in there and look closely, it becomes clear that they've taken this design and pushed out detail across the board."
 

GymWolf

Member
One thing Forbidden West does better is the level of geometry details thanks to the incredible vegetation system. This is where the game can be more impressive if you appreciate how expensive vegetation is for a hardware to run at this level. But SM2 is better in all others (technical) aspects IMO.
Average character rendering is way better in hfw.

You can pick an npc with one line of dialogue and it is gonna be as detailed if not more detailed than sp2 protagonists.

A lot of human models in sp2 are not nextgen looking in the slightest, and before you answer to what i said, go take a look at the models in death stranding, tlou2 or detroit become human (not to mention third party games)
 
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HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
Average character rendering is way better in hfw.

You can pick an npc with one line of dialogue and it is gonna be as detailed if not more detailed than sp2 protagonists.

A lot of human models in sp2 are not nextgen looking in the slightest, and before you answer to what i said, go take a look at the models in death stranding, tlou2 or detroit become human (not to mention third party games)
Eh, Spider-Man 2's get the job done and have some of the best hair rendering of any characters this gen. But, this is, again, silly. These are apples to peanuts comparisons, because each game focuses their strengths in different areas, and unless you're strictly comparing Spider-Man 2 to other open world games of its ilk, this isn't going to make much sense. Not a single game you mentioned has raytracing on 100%, for example. Most of them don't have a world anywhere close to as large as Spider-Man 2's, and don't have the npc/traffic density. These are all things that have to be considered.

So, while I agree that we can't say Spider-Man 2 is better than Forbidden West in "all other aspects", it definitely has its advantages over it when judging open world vs open world.
 

GymWolf

Member
Eh, Spider-Man 2's get the job done and have some of the best hair rendering of any characters this gen. But, this is, again, silly. These are apples to peanuts comparisons, because each game focuses their strengths in different areas, and unless you're strictly comparing Spider-Man 2 to other open world games of its ilk, this isn't going to make much sense. Not a single game you mentioned has raytracing on 100%, for example. Most of them don't have a world anywhere close to as large as Spider-Man 2's, and don't have the npc/traffic density. These are all things that have to be considered.

So, while I agree that we can't say Spider-Man 2 is better than Forbidden West in "all other aspects", it definitely has its advantages over it when judging open world vs open world.
You were the one who said that sp2 does everything better than hfw except foliage or whatever it was, i'm just pointing how models are also way better.

Hair rendering doesn't even look as good as fifa hair tech from a couple of years ago, you may want to look at some gifs from those games to see what i'm talking about, frostbite hair tech is still king.

I give slightly more merit to hfw for looking basically as impressive as sp2 (one win for some aspects, the other win in others) while being 2 years older AND crossgen.

Horizon 3 nextgen only is gonna melt brains.
 
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HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
You were the one who said that sp2 does everything better than hfw except foliage or whatever it was, i'm just pointing how models are also way better.

Hair rendering doesn't even look as good as fifa hair tech from a couple of years ago, you may want to look at some gifs from those games to see what i'm talking about, frostbite hair tech is still king.

I give slightly more merit to hfw for looking basically as impressive as sp2 (one win for some aspects, the other win in others) while being 2 years older AND crossgen.

Horizon 3 nextgen only is gonna melt brains.
I did not say that. Physiognomonics did. I agreed with his assessment of geometry detail and vegetation.

In any case, the Frostbite stuff is irrelevant, because I didn't say Spider-Man 2's hair was the best. I said it does it better than a lot of the games you mentioned.
 
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GymWolf

Member
I did not say that. Physiognomonics did. I agreed with his assessment of geometry detail and vegetation.

In any case, the Frostbite stuff is irrelevant, because I didn't say Spider-Man 2's hair was the best. I said it does it better than a lot of the games you mentioned.
Lol sorry, the quotes got mixed, my bad :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 

Caio

Member
I watched the video, the Game looks fantastic, a massive improvements over the previous games. I don't have a PS5 yet, I'll buy the PRO on Day one, so I have to wait a bit, sadly. I'm happy it's receiving great reviews, I'm happy it looks beautiful, and I hope they will do a great job for the PRO model :D
 

poodaddy

Member
I wonder how many inches the Wolverine statue is gonna be when the special edition is announced?

Cuz I'll be ready goddammit.

I'll be ready.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I remember playing SM2018 on my PS4 Pro, I thought the game looked amazing, very sharp, excellent IQ, consistent performance, huge world, and then the 2020 remaster/MM still looked excellent. Then this comes out and just blows it away. Very impressive.

Insomniac solved the "ray tracing reflections running at 60fps on a big open-world with incredible fast travel" problem on consoles. No other studios come close. At this point they could make money on selling their engine to others instead of using badly optimized UE5 engine.
Not to be akshully guy because they're never going to do it, but UE is what it is in part because it has to be all things to all people. Their engine is crafted to what they need and their own staff, selling it is a distraction.
 
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