Digital Foundry: The First Descendant - PS5/Series X|S/PC Tech Review - Ray Tracing and AMD FSR3 Frame Gen Tested

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
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It's mode overload once again in the First Descendant - a new Unreal Engine 5 loot shooter with more than just a passing resemblance to Bungie's Destiny. PS5, Series X and S each offer up 30, 40 and 60FPS modes - with an additional option to add in AMD's FSR 3 frame generation technology, or even ray tracing. But between all the options here, has developer Nexon Games given us any ideal way to enjoy the game - or are there combinations to avoid?

00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:32 Ray Tracing Tested
00:04:48 PS5/Series X 30/40/60FPS Modes
00:08:21 Series X FSR 3 Frame Gen
00:12:31 PS5 FSR 3 Frame Gen
00:15:05 Series S 30/40/60FPS Modes
00:16:45 Series S Frame Gen
00:18:25 Final Thoughts
 
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50% higher frames under the performance mode including 10+ FPS advantage in other modes!??

Dj Khaled Mtv Emas GIF by 2020 MTV EMA
 
- Free to play UE5 looter shooter
- 3 graphical modes: 60 fps Performance, 40 fps Balanced, 30 fps Fidelity
- Main difference between the three is native resolution
- Frame Gen via FSR3 toggle on all modes on console present
- PS5 / Series X have RT mode but it is disabled when using Frame Gen
- DF thinks the game offers too many fidelity options to 'ruin the experience' for a console game

RT:
- PC has Ray reconstruction, multiple tiers of RT options
- Ultra RT needs frame gen to be acceptable
- PS5 / SX cannot combine the two
- Enabling RT only has minor AO RT boost but it also made the game prone to crashes for DF, so they opted to turn it off
- DF will revisit this when the game deploys more patches in the future, currently they did not recommend RT on console at all

General Graphics:

Non Frame Gen:
- On PS5/SX : Fidelity / Balanced target 4K with varying ranges of DRS. Performance targets DRS 1440p
- Native 4K only really achievable by looking at the sky or sparse indoor areas
- 40 fps Balanced mode has uneven frame-pacing on Xbox while it is paced evenly on PS5, both retain at the target very well
- 30 fps Fidelity mode runs 'remarkably well' with only some streaming hitches
- 60 fps Performance mode has lower shadows and DoF. 60 FPS is not 100% locked as game is prone to traversal hitches and drops during camera-cuts in scenes
- 60 fps Performance mode is the best way to play the game.

With Frame Gen:
- Enabling frame-gen reduces the games max native resolution in each mode and changes it to static from DRS
- Fidelity + FSR3 = 1260p, Balanced + FSR3 = 1080p, Performance + FSR3 = 840p

Frame Gen w/ Xbox:
- Visual settings between all 3 are very close with minor deviations in Performance mode, with resolution being the main difference
- Performance mode is still the only one that reaches 60 FPS consistently with Frame Gen
- Fidelity ranges from mid 30s to 50~
- Balanced can rise to 60 FPS now and then but it's still better with the 40 FPS cap
- Performance mode has no real advantage with Frame Gen 3 but has more issues than before
- Drops under 60 FPS are more frequent and the 60 FPS is un-evenly paced whenever it hits 60 FPS with frame time spikes worse than with frame-gen off
- VRR does not engage properly with frame gen 3 on either PS5/SX
- DF's recommendation: Run the game without frame gen

Frame Gen w/ PS5:
- PS5 has a unique output solution where frame-gen 3 changes the target from 60 FPS to 90 FPS
- Performance mode can hit between 70 to 90 fps with erratic frame pacing
- The other modes are never close to the target
- SX vs PS5 in Fidelity mode + Frame Gen can run up to 10 fps higher on PS5
- 'Disabling frame-gen for a more consistent performance is a better way to go'
- VRR does not work with frame-gen enabled.


Series S:
- All modes and frame-gen retained from the other consoles
- Visual features are a match to PS5/SX minus the shadow quality
- DRS bounds for Fidelity and Balanced are 1440p max with 720p lows
- Balanced mode is not recommended as the 40 fps cap does not work
- Performance mode drops to 1080p DRS for a 60 FPS target
- 60 FPS possible in stretches but dives too often into the mid 40s
- 30 FPS fidelity mode is DF's recommended way to play the game

- With frame gen, all modes are largely unimproved with uneven frame-pacing in the performance mode with frame-gen 3
- Fidelity mode can drop to high 20's unlike with Frame Gen off
- Frame Gen is not recommended like the other consoles

Verdict:
- Offers plenty of modes with permutations but only a couple lead to playable experiences
- DF recommends Performance mode on PS5/SX with the frame-gen disabled
- On Series S, they recommend using the 30 FPS fidelity mode with frame-gen disabled
- "Too many options lead to poor performance .. there's a lack of polish"
 
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rickybooby87 said:
50% higher frames under the performance mode including 10+ FPS advantage in other modes!??

Dj Khaled Mtv Emas GIF by 2020 MTV EMA
Click to expand...


Only with the shitty frame-gen implementation that they recommend you turn off on all consoles anyway.

If You Say So Wow GIF by Identity



thatJohann said:
Ugh I hate all these settings and options. Just give me the best one. Otherwise I would've gotten a PC!
Click to expand...


True, between RT, frame gen and the 3 modes as it is, the game offers 8~ fidelity modes and only the Performance mode is really recommended. VRR doesn't work on any of the frame-gen modes so they are essentially useless.

Devs should focus on one or two modes at best and polish those.
 
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adamsapple said:
Only with the shitty frame-gen implementation that they recommend you turn off on all consoles anyway.

If You Say So Wow GIF by Identity






True, between RT, frame gen and the 3 modes as it is, the game offers 8~ fidelity modes and only the Performance mode is really recommended. VRR doesn't work on any of the frame-gen modes so they are essentially useless.

Devs should focus on one or two modes at best and polish those.
Click to expand...
It seems extremely strange to me how DF are the only ones that detect that the XBOX versions are locked to 60fps in FrameGen modes. In none of the other analyzes on the internet of different sites is this 60fps block seen and the results are very different....

On the other hand, I have tried the game in its FrameGen modes with VRR and I do not appreciate the instability problems he describe. Apart from the fact that the TV itself detects framerate above 60fps (although that is not always true because in 120hz mode it shows double). Could it be a server stability problem or the network game?


 
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onQ123 said:
DF thread falling to the 2nd page within 3 hours?

People not even surprised anymore when stuff run better on PS5.
Click to expand...
Don't worry, as always happens when PS5 wins, you soon have the usuals making the great post you want and adding pages about the special hardware that PS5 has that do frame.gen in this game works "correctly" and not in XSX due to technical deficiencies.😉

It's funny because there was already one from the beta where the PS5 version was full of problems and the thread had 0 success either like all the threads where XSX wins that barely add up to 1 or two pages.That is, nothing has changed, it is simply selective memory.

That said, there is something wrong with framegen mode on Xbox. There is no point in locking fps on these modes. And on the other hand it is surprising that only DF is getting locked fps in XSX in its data when all the other media show something completely opposite.
 
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onQ123 said:
DF thread falling to the 2nd page within 3 hours?

People not even surprised anymore when stuff run better on PS5.
Click to expand...
As always it changes on a near month basis. This runs better on PS5, Dragons Dogma 2 and some others are a wash. Before that Ark, and Grounded are better on Xbox, and before that is was PS5, Xbox, the same, etc…

I'm still surprised that after almost 4 years of the above people are still trying to crown an overall winner.
 
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Zathalus said:
As always it changes on a near month basis. This run better on PS5, Dragons Dogma 2 and some others are a wash. Before that Ark, and Grounded are better on Xbox, and before that is was PS5, Xbox, the same, etc…

I'm still surprised that after almost 4 years of the above people are still trying to crown an overall winner.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call this a 'win' for either platform, the only thing that makes a difference is the frame gen but DF recommend you turn it off cause the implementation is so poor.

If frame-gen worked with VRR then the 70~90 fps mode would be fantastic, but as it stands, targeting 90 in a 120hz container, and even barely hitting that, will make it a poor way to play.
 
Mr Moose said:
This can't be, I thought Unreal 5 runs better on Xbox!

Game looks shit.
Click to expand...
Maybe it was your impression because that has been the "trend" with enough cases where did XSX come out better in UE5 games vs PS5 within a huge general equality in resulta for both? ..... And it is not that this case is dictating something that deviates from because the differentiating aspect does not correspond to what is related to the aspects of UE5. For not remembering the specific optimization situation of the game in the past month.
 
Crapping on a console because it gives you options is a major L from Digital foundry!

People want choices which is why they buy pc's now we are being told console people don't like options on consoles?
 
What's the point of frame-gen without VRR? Stupid. Hopefully they'll always set that shit as an option. Also what's the input latency cost of FG? Seems important to me.

Overall I think this game needs a lot of polishing on all consoles and they really should not have put a 30fps mode except on XSS.
 
Zathalus said:
As always it changes on a near month basis. This runs better on PS5, Dragons Dogma 2 and some others are a wash. Before that Ark, and Grounded are better on Xbox, and before that is was PS5, Xbox, the same, etc…

I'm still surprised that after almost 4 years of the above people are still trying to crown an overall winner.
Click to expand...
There is no overall winning some stuff will run better on PS5 & some will run better on Xbox.


My point of saying no one is surprised by games running better on PS5 anymore is that it used to cause pages of back & forth .
 
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Darsxx82 said:
It seems extremely strange to me how DF are the only ones that detect that the XBOX versions are locked to 60fps in FrameGen modes. In none of the other analyzes on the internet of different sites is this 60fps block seen and the results are very different....

On the other hand, I have tried the game in its FrameGen modes with VRR and I do not appreciate the instability problems he describe. Apart from the fact that the TV itself detects framerate above 60fps (although that is not always true because in 120hz mode it shows double). Could it be a server stability problem or the network game?


Click to expand...

Perhaps DF removed identical frames in 120Hz mode when counting?
Hopefully the issue on XBOX will be fixed in a future update.
 
SKYF@ll said:
Perhaps DF removed identical frames in 120Hz mode when counting?
Hopefully the issue on XBOX will be fixed in a future update.
Click to expand...
Well, I don't really know, but if you look at the fps in the other sites it wouldn't match either because there never reach 120fps and the figures are similar to those on PS5. Even more curious is that in the 40fps mode without framegen (120hz mode) the results coincide with DF and the framepacing described (framerate in XSX not locked at 40 but fluctuating between 40-41-42-45fps) occurs.

The fact is that it makes no sense to block the framegen modes at 60fps (also not at 90fps eigther) because you would defeat the main purpose vs the non-framegen modes.

We will see in future patches if they improve, but my personal experience in framegen + VRR modes is not especially bad compared to how DF describes it. Of course, modes without frame-gen activated are definitely still preferable with VRR for the mere fact that there is better IQ as it presents fewer image artifacts.
 
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This game aint exactly a beacon of stability on pc either. Framegen sometimes just "breaks" and you have to toggle it off then back on to fix it. It's got that korean luster in equal measures to that korean jank.
 
King Dazzar said:
120hz VRR should be what's required.
Click to expand...
Thanks. The main TV in the lounge room doesn't have those features but the one in the living room does. Will try it there tomorrow to check. I've been happy enough with performance mode without frame gen anyway but just want to see the differences.
 
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