Waiting for the 24hr marathon stream with DF. Gradually gets more and more unhinged until 3am when it’s just John playing a retro game while Alex sleeps in his chair and Rich leaves the room.
I've been working at a job recently where I have lots of time to listen to podcasts, and I always look forward to these Monday uploads for my fix! Keep up the amazing work, DF team!
People forget psp had remote play with ps3 way back in 2008. It used the traditional WiFi connection method but, also had this direct WiFi connection to the ps3 itself w/o the need of a router. It suffered the same intermittent latency and connection issues as the vita did with ps4 and now the portal. At least in my experience. I remember being amazed at remote play feature back then streaming pixel junk monsters from the ps3 to my psp Lol
And before that you had the N64 and GB connection, then GBA and GameCube. Albeit they went with a more bespoke design as hardware was not at an affordable point to provide the streaming experience required for full on game streaming. I wasn't impressed with the PS3 and PSP streaming experience - I tried it a few times, but it was clear this was Sony's usual design philosophy - copy all ideas from the competition Still nice to see Sony giving the Wii U concept another go.
@@VariantAEC I just downloaded PS1 games I purchased on PS Store such as Tomb Raider and Crash on Vita and PS3. I just wasn't a big fan of the lag introduced via Remote Play, probably why so few games made use of it - it's something that couldn't be helped at the time.
The name of the SOC (as printed) is SG4150P, which people suspect may be based on a Snapdragon 460 SM4250 SoC, which is a downclocked variant of 662 SM6115. (source : Reddit)
I bought a 26" Samsung TV in 2008 and it had that resolution. On PC you could use 1360x768 to get 1:1 pixel mapping. Also, Xbox 360 added support for PC resolutions, so outputting 768p instead of 720p looked much better, as the 360 had a great scaler. What I also liked about HD Ready TVs was that they accepted 1080p signals and downscaled them to 768p. This was the time when aliasing was becoming a serious problem, so downscaling from 1080p improved image quality a lot.
@@THU31 Yup you’re totally correct. I also had a gaming pc connected to the panel via VGA, which I also set at the 768P native resolution. I too had an Xbox 360 connected via component. I don’t think the 768 resolution option was available when connecting through component as this typically only supports TV and not PC type resolutions, so I set that to 720p. I would have liked to have connected through VGA at 768p, but like I said, that port was being used by my PC. Remember at the time, a lot of people saying that the VGA option looked sharper, but had slightly washed out colours, whilst connecting the 360 via component, looked a little bit softer but the colours were a more vivid, if that makes sense.
Regarding the portal if you turn off HDR, VRR and 120 mode in the PS5 settings, you get next to no latency and what looks like higher resolution, so maybe the full 1080p.
The VR discussion was awesome! Shout outs to TeamBeef!!! Using Steam VR there are tons of custom mods for classic PC Games, but SideQuest is even easier to set up much of the time.
@@Chasm9 The answer to that question entirely depends on your budget/commitment for VR. Generally Quest 2 is the easiest pick because it works fine without a PC for the most popular games and is a decent headset when linked with one.
On the backwards compatibility thing, the pixel perfect mode for DS games on the 3DS is actually great if you're using one of the XL models. The shrunken image actually ends up being similar in size to the screens on the original DS, DS Lite, or DSi.
Glad you are back on the VR train John! I got a psvr2 and a Qest3 as well and the quest3 really impressed me with the wireless vr and hand tracking. Assassins creed is also surprisingly good and complete, not a demo, an actual game.
I'm glad you can play an actual game and not a demo... Good for you honestly! and I'm sure that justifies spending thousands of dollars on a dying ecosystem that no major publishers code for and the best you can hope for from major developers is a port or two a couple of years after the game's launch, if you're lucky.
@@Coxy-b34 Yes, but the OP said he bought a PSVR 2 and a Meta3, those alone are just over $1000, I bet you the OP also has other Headsets, doubtful he owns just those 2 new ones.
@@christopher2684 The OP was referring to Assassins Creed on the Quest 3 but if you do include his PSVR2 the would bring the sum to $1049. Hardly thousands is it and bringing what you imagine someone has spent on other VR hardware into the equation is nonsensical.
@@GreatDeadGodwhy is your post so angry towards a stranger who says they enjoy VR? I own a PSVR2 and play it quite regularly. They have added a lot of 3rd party games to the list, even though they’re not advertising them, and my main use case is with GT7! I have a wheel and it’s truly a game changer. It’s worth it, to me, just for that game alone. I await any untoward response you may have for me just because I own and enjoy a VR device. 😊
Removing the HDMI cable from the PS5 reduced lag for me. I don’t know how this works but I’ve just tried it and it does!! I have an LG C9 with the PS5 connected to a Hue Sync Box and the Hue Sync Box connected to the TV. I don’t have a Portal yet but I have the PlayStation Backbone controller and use remote play often with my iPhone 14 Pro Max and remote play works flawlessly with my Series X but whenever I tried with the PS5, I’d have to wait for about 5-10 minutes before games were playable. The way I’d test it would be by going to the home menu and pressing the d-pad to cycle between games. It would sort of freeze for a second on a game before eventually catching up with a different game tile highlighted. I put my console into rest mode, unplugged the HDMI from my console and tried that test again. It cycled through the games and menus lag free! Hopefully Sony can release an update that if you’re connected by remote play, it doesn’t trigger CEC from switching the console on. Now to source a Portal for my wife to get me for Christmas…
I got the same type of discussion with a guy who said "the steam deck doesn't do much, I can find a gaming laptop within the same price range" but couldn't show me a link to an actual gaming laptop that costs 400$
As a video editor I appreciated the discussion on encoding and upload settings immensely, always trying to get better results from TH-cam uploads 👌 I also wouldn't doubt whoever's doing these games trailers are just using the TH-cam render preset in these programs because they don't know any better
I think Alex meant the -O optimization for the C compiler that was missing from Mario 64 in the original code. The decompiling project fixed that and made that game run much faster in original hardware.
it's very interesting to know that there is a decent "FOMO" market for something like the PS Portal but it doesn't change the fact that it's a niche device ( with lots of requirements to work half decently) for a very niche audience
I’m not sure it’s that niche. Anyone with kids or a partner that hogs the tv might be its target market. And people who like playing in places other than their living room.
John: "Why people loved the Arkham games?" I'd say a lot of people (including me) loved them because Rocksteady made you feel like Batman. Now you're generic "Haloguy" with a Harley Quinn skin and the shooting is not designed by Bungie. But hey, so many people spend outrageous amounts of money on skins so maybe the game will find success.
If the SteamDeck’s theoretical advantage is its performance at low wattage, that is torpedoed for me by its large size. I don’t want such a gigantic device on the bus. And most of us pleebs aren’t flying on the regular, but many of us take public transit regularly. And the battery life is sufficient for many of us for that. Keeping in mind the battery only needs to last one way, as many of us can recharge at our destination before the return trip.
One of Rich's first answers says all you need to know about the PlayStation Portal. "The Wii U was built from the group up for second screen streaming, whereas the PlayStation Portal is just a hardware add-on". Disappointing that this custom hardware SOLD for streaming clearly wasn't actually custom hardware BUILT for streaming. "There's no secret sauce here" -- "that's what you'd expect from Sony" -- "I've seen no evidence of that".
Isn’t he talking about the actual PS5 Console though? Not defending PS Portal by any means, but is there a lot to be done when PS5 itself wasn’t built for it?
Regarding Alex's "export thing" Bethesda used the wrong compiler on Skyrim. A modder did it in the correct version and uploaded a .exe, and it provided something like a 20% FPS boost immediately. It was a pretty embarrassing look for Bethesda.
I got CRT scanlines slightly burned-in on my 4K lg oled so I'm not too keen on using HDR crt scanlines with the retrotink 4K, and now with this price..
25:30 stop saying it's a good device! It's as expensive as a PS5 or a mid range smartphone and all it can do is laggy local streaming. You can't even connect your Bluetooth headphones to it!!!!!
I started paying attention more after the first time i heard DF crew talking about the youtube upload topic and yes indeed they do have clearer videos than a LOT of other outlets. Glad we have people like this figuring out how to deliver quality content
John, make sure to test the Bigscreen Beyond in your VR headset roundup. It has a wire but it also has the most glorious high res OLED screen of any headset currently available.
Please, for the love of everything Holy, keep the content coming. I love that you are making the Directs longer. I look forward to every Monday, coming into work and turning on DF.
The biggest issues with remote play are not related to the network connection. The encode/decode has too much latency. On the same network moonlight has a fraction (not exaggerating) of the added latency.
I can share with you a better solution albeit a bit more expensive "if" you don't currently own a PC. If you do own a PC. Buy $200 Elgato 4K60 pro. Connect your PS5 to the capture card and download OBS to the PC and configure it to stream. Then Download Moonlight to your android device and you can stream your PS5 wherever and at whatever resolution your internet can handle. Way better experience for roughly the same price if you already own a PC. Also it's way more stable. I use a 15" Samsung Tab S8 Ultra on a swivel mount by my bedside. It's Oled and I play on 4K60 using gigabit internet wired to the tablet using a USBC ethernet hub and my dualsense connected to the PS5 so you still get the Dualsense haptics.
The "router" joke must be making me feel how every other culture feels when Americans joke about their pronunciations lol thank you for that experience
IMO for the price they should at least using PS1 games to be played native. And you got a good point over the signal capacity. I work at IT and signal is still a huge problem because here in Brazil ours houses and apartaments are made with bricks, not to mention apartaments are so much close to each others making interference a colossal problem to be fixed. All this do fight with your router QoS. Is impressive how we got mix bag Playstation Portal, with was made by a company that have a huge historic of doing portable devices like PSP and PSvita, and at the same time we have Valve doing heavens with the Steam Deck OLED. No comments about Suicide Squad. Will be dead at arrival.
The #1 criticism I have with the ROG Ally is the battery. Saying you want a light weight system is fine but when your processor performs optimally at 20 watts it needs a 60Wh battery, (50% larger than what it has now).
@@Bootlickerkicker And then the kicker is those same indie games you need to choose for good battery life on the Ally would get around 50% longer runtime on Steamdeck OLED. I wasn't a fan of Steamdeck when it was introduced because I thought "surely such a weak chip will quickly be shown as inferior", and now I own one because all indications point to the Van Gogh APU being so expertly tailored that no commercially viable chip will outperform it any time soon. Generational gains from the 6800u to 7840u in gaming benchmarks have been minimal, which means even if Valve had committed to producing an RDNA3 Steamdeck it would have been virtually identical to the performance we already got with Steamdeck OLED anyway. At this point my money is on the table betting the battery life of Steamdeck OLED won't be beaten by any handheld PC until Steamdeck 2.
About Starfield I think we also should be fair when saying "modders figured it out in 4 hours" because probably there are modders out there that are more familiar with the engine than actual BGS employee's. And this isn't a drag or anything, it's very possible considering that the modders have been working on it since Fallout 3 (or even before, I'm using it as a reference because it's the game BGS "forked" to make the Creation Engine), and BGS has hired a bunch of new devs between 2016 and 2023 (specially during Fallout 76, considering that BGS was basically creating an "excuse" to hire more people to later realocate to Starfield)
The Portal is the most Cult-of-Apple product Sony has ever released. I've seen all the popular arguments for why it exists, yet I'm still convinced that this thing's primary purpose is to milk more money from PlayStation diehards.
Come on guys, you are supposed to be gaming tech experts. Xbox One has the following features that are not available on the Series consoles: 1) HDMI in port 2) USB TV tuner add on with guide too 3) Disc drive (Series S doesn't have one, obviously Series X does) 4) and the biggie... Kinect compatibility!
I use the ROG Ally. It works well for me because in most use cases I can plug it in at some point. At work, in an airport or on a plane, in a hotel, or at a family member's house during the holidays. The times I don't have it plugged in are few and far between.
Thanks for the EA Sports WRC update. Would love to see a dedicated video comparing the PC game to the consoles. Please dig deeper on the issues that the PC version has... there is definitely something wrong with the frame pacing and frame rate in general. The 0.1% lows on the PC are huge even on Alder lake CPUs and up... the game appears to be CPU limited at mid to high FPS (120-165) even on the lowest settings when visually it has no right to be CPU limited... it's just odd.
@@tyrantworm7392 This is probably true. It's a shame that EA WRC which arguably doesn't look much better than the 5yo Dirt Rally 2.0 might require an x3D CPU to brute force the game to run stutter free past 120fps.
1:46:00 I think it was Morrowind that shipped without optimization flags, hard to find documentation about it without the wayback machine. Randy Pitchford's Aliens: Colonial Marines had a single spelling error in the code that nullified the Alien AI. They spelled tether as "teather" which caused the Aliens to just stand there and hiss at the player when they had animations and interactions for crawling, climbing, diving, dashing, venting etc. Shipping an Aliens game without AI is my all time favorite.
IGN’s video review of EA WRC also showed and lamented the horrendous performance and bizzaro stutters of the console versions. Think this one definitely needs a DF review and a lot more spotlight…
WiiU is a superior experience. I played some Spider-Man 2 at work on my Portal and I yearn for consistent frame rates and resolutions. Also, latency was a big issue in combat in SM2.
Hmm.. The PS Portal is Pixel streaming. Ofc there will be SOME day compare to a wired connection to your PC. FYI grab a PCVR Headset and you will also hear audio delay on the HDM vs Sound card. Try Quest 2/3 Link streaming... I think I got the point across :) If it's acceptable and not noticeable with the naked eye.. they win. The rest is just trying to nick-pick ?! (Although, all the points you make are valid, so there is that as well ^_^) Awesome Direct DF ;)
the PS Portal discussion nailed all the gripes i had with how its being reviewed, like sure it performs well with excellent wi-fi but how's the portal actually? let alone the latency it has. glad there's more discussions like these bc Sony really missed the mark with this one
I tried the Bloodborne via PS remote play on PC. Input lag was noticeable but was better than I expected. While image quality was lower resolution, video compression somehow improved anti-aliasing effect.
20:33 that has happened. Many times. There has been enough reports around regarding hardware manufacturers paying or coercing youtube reviewers to confirm this. Is it happening with Sony in this case? Possibly not but Rich's assertions are provably false and the defensive position for somebody in the industry for so long is rather strange.
Your citation of GamerNexus’ report on MSI was a bust. Care to provide any other sources that actually support your claim? Or are you firmly in the “feelings over facts” camp?
@@dab88 no, you were claiming Rich was being dishonest with no proof. So unless you have insight into his mindset or proof that undermines his experiences and integrity, you’re being ridiculously irrational. In other words, your feelings are overriding any and all facts.
@@earlyriser03 dishonest? I said he was being defensive. He's not making such statements with even an smidge of nuance. Why do you keep going on about feelings and facts as if that has any actual bearing on what's being said?
@@dab88 and you clearly imply he is being dishonest by* claiming his response is “provably false”. I keep going on about feelings versus facts because YOUR beliefs, YOUR feelings are all you’re offering, NOT facts. You’ve yet to offer anything that undermines Rich’s personal experience or journalistic integrity. I’m waiting.
I know Codemasters said they switched engines for the longer stages, but Dirt Rally 1 had sizeable 19km stages with Pikes Peak. That's longer than anything they put into Dirt Rally 2.0, where the longest was like ~14km? Still a far cry from the handful of 30km+ stages in WRC, I know. Many locations are still around the ~20km range for their longest ones, however. Feel like they could have made longer stages work in Ego for WRC, even if it were too much effort to update Ego to support larger maps and longer stages. Maybe there's some memory limitation or hard map size limit where the roads might have to snake around more rather than extended point to point distances and have fewer unique roadside objects and details, but they could have fudged all that a bit, even if they were basing everything on real roads.
I can imagine the xperia 10 products haven't sold very well over the years so they will break down those SKUs and then turn either the Snapdragon 665/690/695 chipsets along with the speakers from those models into a playstation portal, the Xperia 10 models usually sell within the three hundred range, they did have a LCD screen for the first iteration for that device, if this is the case it would kind of make sense to use that also.
Idk but my previous phone was a xperia 1 with the 4k screen. Watching hdr blu ray rips on it was something special. No one ever talks about how cool those phones are.
@@eternalbeing3339 Yeah I have the Xperia 1v, (the flagship model) they're great devices, I don't use the cinema pro app/software much though but I think the Xperia devices go over people's heads due to Sony not marketing them much, I've bought multiple Sony phones over the years and as far a I recall I have never seen a advertisement for them especially via TH-cam.
I agree that TH-cam prioritizes 1080p. I have a channel that recently uploaded up to 3X 30 min video's every single day for 5 weeks- 1080p was 20 mins to publish at 480p(30 for 1080p), 1440p was almost 1hr. The file size difference was about 1gb(4gb for 1080p). Even though the original content was 1080p, 1440p did improve visual quality on a larger screen, so used it when.......I couldn't sleep
i just got done beating ff7 intergrade with my portal and honestly was a very good experience to be honest if they could update it somehow to just be a constant smooth experience it would be golden!!! 💯
PS Portal sounds like a crock of shit. Terrible product that is vastly overpriced for what it does. They are relying on the ignorance of consumers who think it'll connect seamlessly through some propriety connection.
I think Valve won't release a Steam Deck 2 with a significant performance boost until we see next-gen home consoles or a very significant mid-gen enhancement to home consoles. Valve was very smart to release the Steam Deck using the same Zen 1 architecture as the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S relatively early in their lifecycle. Xbox Series S being the low-end hardware that developers basically must support for the entirety of this console generation, most next-gen games should be able to at least run on Steam Deck at a similar settings profile, but targeting lower resolutions. The continual improvement of upscaling technologies like FSR should also help ensure Steam Deck is relevant for quite a while. The games with poor optimization for PC in general won't be able to run, we're already starting to see that, but I think the majority, especially the big games which will receive frequent updates post-launch, should be in a playable state. One thing that is encouraging is we've seen pretty big improvements to the performance of games through patches and software updates - Guardians of the Galaxy Steam Deck couldn't maintain 30FPS on Steam Deck originally, but now users have been able to push it to target 40FPS for the game now.
I got a PS Portal for my 10 year old for Christmas because I have the PS5 on my main TV for 120hz but with him getting more into gaming, I need my TV back from Fortnite and Roblox along with everything else he is playing. Edit: I want the tv for regular TV and Series X use.
You can’t use the ps5 when he’s using the portal. Unless you mean you want the tv for other stuff, in that case why spend $200 on a cheap product an not another tv?
@@twocityfoodies8476well than I guess you made a good choice. Personally I would have bought a 40” tv to set up in another room. But if you are happy that’s all that matters.
I've had a great experience with the Playstation Portal. I get a hiccup every now and then, but it's allowed me to play in bed, and I'm even gonna try it away from home next. The image quality looks pretty good to me, I haven't noticed any loss in image quality. But I'm sure Digital Foundry can do a video comparison to show me what I'm missing so I can feel bad about it.
PS5 doesn’t support 3D Blu-ray’s, it breaks some PS4 games, it breaks some emulated PS2 games and some PSVR games. So there is a reason to keep your PS4.
Quick point about this Sony portal: Why didn't they allow direct connection between it and playstation, not just for remote play, but as a second screen like the wii u, for maps, inventory etc etc
Got a Quest 2 a few years back after not having played with VR since demo'ing the original Oculus. Got the Quest 3 a few weeks ago and was equally blown away by how far things have come; particularly the AR aspects of it but of course the screens and lenses as well.
Waiting for that $100 dongle from Sony that implements WiFi direct. I can only assume that they didn't plan on releasing this product when they designed the PS5, as Nintendo did with the Wii U. Personally, I bought a Portal, but I'm an expecting father who lives in a small apartment with little signal noise from neighboring networks (most of which use 2.4 Ghz anyway). It's great for playing singleplayer games and particularly games that detect controller disconnections and pause the game when such a connection is lost. The Portal does have a tendency to randomly disconnect completely for really no reason, or at least with no discernible pattern. I use a very old router that was cheap even when it was new and I don't really see any different from what others are reporting on far more expensive routers. That being said, it seems that an ethernet connection is pretty much mandatory. You have to temper your expectations with any cloud device, of course, but I think the people who use it aren't going to notice the things that DF and its audience do. Microsoft's cloud service is extremely popular despite being having absolutely disgusting visuals. It's seriously disgusting. And PSN's new streaming function is gorgeous, at least here in Japan, which leads to me believe that Sony is working on the technology and hopefully will carry it over to the Portal via an update. Even if they don't, however, I'm fairly content with what's on offer already. But that's my personal taste with my low expectations. I do agree with the viewer's question regarding misinformation, some of the early reviews I saw were absurdly positive to the point that I suspected Sony of selectively choosing to whom they sent review units.
I would say its not reasonable to meet or exceed the wiiU as that had dedicated hardware for short distance signal sending. Portal will always be limited to your local network foibles. I would have liked the option of direct Wifi like they had before, or perhaps an optional dongle + Wifi 6E for less chance of network congestion
Yeah that's really disappointing. If they did something like the wii U, I would've picked It up. But I definitely won't be picking up a glorified remote play device (which isn't near as clear or perfectly smooth as some outlets have suggested).
23:20 Hey John you might get better performance out of a mesh wifi style network, rather than wifi repeaters/extenders. I live in a granny flat next to the main building and found after upgrading to a mesh network it improved performance and also stopped random drop outs 👍
Im actually selling my ally and ive ordered the OLED deck, ive spent 6 months or so with the ally and while its been generally pretty good its become clear to me it just isnt the same experience as the deck, ive had an LCD deck shelved since getting the ally and ive tried to love the ally but i dont, the immediate turn on for the ally is the display but now that the deck has the OLED it kind of loses that advantage and almost everything else just swings in favour of the deck for me from battery life to OS down to the community support, theres nothing like getting a community made deck controller config and it just working amazing but you dont get that with the windows handhelds, then theres the accessories available, from hall effect sticks to cases, its just got that backing and after 6 months the ally does not have the same support. I also didn't find the ally to be anywhere near the performance jump i expected either, there was always a compromise to be made and often even needing to below native res which takes away from that resolution advantage the ally has to. Ive come to realize AAA games are just not for these handhelds and the thousands of indie games is where its at, and when it comes to those games the deck runs away with it... 30 plus watt on ally plugged in is impressive but nothing like as impressive as 4w on the deck and it still working well, the ally basically falls to sleep at 7w, almost everything is unplayable. obviously im trying to make myself feel better about my decision ofcourse, if i didn't order the OLED id be singing the praises of the ally naturally but for real, reality is the deck is still the king, just is, but i had a pretty good time with ally, definitely one of the better windows devices, SD card aside.
The Playstation Portal isn't for me, but it seems perfectly fine for "dad life". I am curious what John thinks is an appropriate price for a dualsense controller, OLED and SoC? $199 USD seems like a decent price when a retail dualsense white version is still $50.
I think this is exactly who it's targeted at. Dad's who don't have the luxury of using the TV or a separate monitor whenever they have 20 minutes to spare and want to play some games. 1 TV families when Mum wants to watch some TV and Dad wants to play games.
That suicide squad trailer was funny. they hid the ui and spammed the character abilities (all of which have cooldowns) instead of focusing on the samey weapons (which will be the majority of how players will deal damage and play the game) just to give us the illusion that this is not a co-op looter shooter at heart. The Division (or the late Avengers) can be played entirely solo too but (1) it is still a looter shooter (2) it shows that it was made for co-op primarily.
To answer Alex's 'I don't know how you guys feel about boss level fights in looter shooters' I'd say it depends on the game. I never much cared for them in the division when I played that when it launched, but in something like destiny, the raid bosses and even some strike bosses are some of the best content in the game by far. My friend used to say the same thing about the bosses in borderlands 2, though I don't have much experience with that and can't personally attest to it.
The Steam Deck LCD is better now after the 3.5 update. You can set it to output sRGB and set the white point to 6500K. It's still an LCD, but it looks a lot better that way at least.
Why are people insisting on judging the Portal against features that it isn't designed to do? Some of this discussion is equivalent to me buying an xbox and complaining that I cant play Spiderman. Or buying a 400 quid PC and moaning that I can't play Cyberpunk on max settings. It's a 200 quid remote play device with a dual sense bolted on to it. And currently, that's it. And we knew that when it was announced. If you don't want one, don't buy one. But complaining about all of the things it can’t do (for 200 quid) is madness. The discourse here is complaining for the sake of complaining.
Actually 200 for something so basic is worth complaining about. The fact you get the same experience as a cheap tablet speaks volumes as you can do more on the tablet.
@@TheBean87dual sense features and the comfort of a proper handheld would make it more appealing than a tablet remote play I'd imagine. If the tablet is fine for some, let them crack on. If other's want the Portal, let them crack on. Surely? Alex said it best during his topic opener.
I don't think it is, personally I thought it was an own goal from the start and I was operating under the assumption that it did connect directly to the PS5, it's incredibly lazy at best and a meme at worst. Add to that if you don't want to use a wired headset you need to spend at least £150 or £200 for the ear buds or new headset because it has a proprietary connection, Sony could've conquered the mobile gaming space a long time ago if they didn't wed themselves to over expensive proprietary systems, UMD on the PSP and the memory cards on the Vita, I love my PS's and I loved the PSP and the Vita and when Sony get it right the make great hardware but when they get it wrong they don't fuck around. As an aside I use my Steam Deck for remote play and it's fine and funnier still the ear buds I use are Sony WF C500's that wont work on the Portal because of it's proprietary wi-fi.
Sony directly sites how important Digital Foundry is in the court case against Microsoft and consider DF during the QC process for new games. They fact that they waited a week to send it out to DF proves that they knew exactly the kind of garbage fire they were releasing.
When an episode ends, I turn away from the screen, curl up into a ball and enter a hibernation state, eagerly awaiting a "notionally instant notification" for another Digital Foundry Direct to rouse me from my perpetual slumber... 😶
except there's proof that it has happened. Go watch the GamersNexus stuff on MSI and their reps shady tactics regarding reviews. I don't appreciate the denial of such practices from Rich considering he heads up a gaming journalism organisation and has been in the industry for so long. How can he NOT know it's happened? Why is he making such a stance? This isn't the first times he's made such ludicrous claims.
@@dab88 thanks for telling me about that video. It was an informative watch. However, you’ve conflated its conclusion to call out Rich for something he didn’t actually say. To clarify, Rich was denying the question’s premise that reviewers were getting “paid off”, as in accepting bribes, NOT the fact that some companies attempt to bribe them in the first place, which the question didn’t address at all. Furthermore, nowhere in the GamersNexus video did Steve point out any instances of reviewers accepting bribes for their reviews. He acknowledged companies’ attempts to bribe, especially newbies (paying for dinners, travel, etc) and challenged people looking to get into independent media to decide how they want to conduct themselves. But, as you already admitted, the video was entirely about MSI’s unethical conduct, not reviewers getting “paid off”. Perhaps before you get worked up over someone’s “stance” in the future, you should make sure they actually took it first.
@@earlyriser03 I think it's beyond naive to conclude that despite companies attempting to bribe reviewers, the gaming industry is entirely clean and above board.
@@dab88 again, you conflated the conclusions of your cited source with something Rich didn’t say and your source doesn’t support. Is there a non-zero chance your claim is true? Maybe. But your “thinking” something is true isn’t proof, unlike Steve’s receipts or Rich’s decades of experience and proven journalistic integrity. Just take your L and move along.
I wouldn't say it was a particularly personally compelling reason, but the Series consoles don't support the Xbox One Kinect sensors at all. If only for game preservation, that would be a reason to hang on to the last gen Xbox One consoles. (One S and X would also require an additional adapter since they lack the dedicated port)
If someone has a 6.8 inch, 120 Hz, Quad HD, AMOLED smartphone, what is the disadvantage of remote playing on that compared to remote playing on PS portal with its unimpressive 60 Hz, LCD?
This episode should just be called "Router" lol that's how we say it in Canada as well. It's hilarious seeing Rich say it like its the most awkward thing ever 😂
Wouldn't be a DF podcast without "bespoke" in the first 10 mins!
In the here and now.
He spoke bespoke, lest he invoke a stroke
@@cosmosofinfinity all the folk would not be stoked
I miss when Rich drops a sporefoken into his little explinations lol
Good stuff
These DF Directs are getting longer and longer every week and I don’t mind
Thats what she said
I cry everytime an episode ends.
Waiting for the 24hr marathon stream with DF.
Gradually gets more and more unhinged until 3am when it’s just John playing a retro game while Alex sleeps in his chair and Rich leaves the room.
Can't help but agree sir
I noticed that too. Kinda funny.
Alex in the thumbnail giving off those "older brother just witnessed you pull off your first ollie on a skateboard in the garden" good vibes.
Hopefully not in the garden, an ollie would crush the plants and fruits and veggies.
Not really, he just looks cringe.
I'm glad you guys are going longer with the show, more content is always welcome and this show is the highlight of my podcasts every week!
I've been working at a job recently where I have lots of time to listen to podcasts, and I always look forward to these Monday uploads for my fix! Keep up the amazing work, DF team!
Same. I work from home and always have something playing to keep me company. DF Direct is always a welcome treat.
@@GreggyAck "work" from home 😉
@@fcukugimmeausername I'm always available 😂
I envy that kind of job. DF and KIndaFunny saved my life last year - literally
i love when Rich said "its bespoken time!" and bespoked all over John and Alex
I had to double check that I wasn't on pornhub then.
@@TyranniodUhh...what lol?
People forget psp had remote play with ps3 way back in 2008. It used the traditional WiFi connection method but, also had this direct WiFi connection to the ps3 itself w/o the need of a router. It suffered the same intermittent latency and connection issues as the vita did with ps4 and now the portal. At least in my experience. I remember being amazed at remote play feature back then streaming pixel junk monsters from the ps3 to my psp Lol
At least the PSP was a console
And before that you had the N64 and GB connection, then GBA and GameCube. Albeit they went with a more bespoke design as hardware was not at an affordable point to provide the streaming experience required for full on game streaming. I wasn't impressed with the PS3 and PSP streaming experience - I tried it a few times, but it was clear this was Sony's usual design philosophy - copy all ideas from the competition Still nice to see Sony giving the Wii U concept another go.
You can also stream PS1 game discs and digitally purchased PS1 games via PS3 Remote Play on PSP and later PS Vita.
@@VariantAEC I just downloaded PS1 games I purchased on PS Store such as Tomb Raider and Crash on Vita and PS3. I just wasn't a big fan of the lag introduced via Remote Play, probably why so few games made use of it - it's something that couldn't be helped at the time.
The soc in the portal is snapdragon 662, its found in 100$ phones.
Damn lol
No wifi travel portal ......no good
The name of the SOC (as printed) is SG4150P, which people suspect may be based on a Snapdragon 460 SM4250 SoC, which is a downclocked variant of 662 SM6115. (source : Reddit)
Dang i expected 4 gen 1 at least but i guess when they mod android into it will play up to psp games fine
But it probably also has minimal storage 32gb or less is my guess
My first “HD Ready" LCD Samsung 32 inch tv, which I bought in late 2005, was indeed 1366 x 768. Just as John said.
How expensive was that?
@@joemassaroni8962 It was £1300 at the time. If I remember correctly, I bought it from Comet
@@Tinfoilist Yes that was the exact model🙂
I bought a 26" Samsung TV in 2008 and it had that resolution. On PC you could use 1360x768 to get 1:1 pixel mapping. Also, Xbox 360 added support for PC resolutions, so outputting 768p instead of 720p looked much better, as the 360 had a great scaler.
What I also liked about HD Ready TVs was that they accepted 1080p signals and downscaled them to 768p. This was the time when aliasing was becoming a serious problem, so downscaling from 1080p improved image quality a lot.
@@THU31 Yup you’re totally correct. I also had a gaming pc connected to the panel via VGA, which I also set at the 768P native resolution. I too had an Xbox 360 connected via component. I don’t think the 768 resolution option was available when connecting through component as this typically only supports TV and not PC type resolutions, so I set that to 720p. I would have liked to have connected through VGA at 768p, but like I said, that port was being used by my PC. Remember at the time, a lot of people saying that the VGA option looked sharper, but had slightly washed out colours, whilst connecting the 360 via component, looked a little bit softer but the colours were a more vivid, if that makes sense.
Poor John, you could literally see his heart breaking when talking about the portal. 😂
Regarding the portal if you turn off HDR, VRR and 120 mode in the PS5 settings, you get next to no latency and what looks like higher resolution, so maybe the full 1080p.
That's a great tip! I don't have a portal, but I do use remote play. (usually on my steam deck, lol)
I'll give it a try. I mean the game already looks pretty sharp to me but heck I'll give it a shot if I can get better resolution.
The VR discussion was awesome! Shout outs to TeamBeef!!! Using Steam VR there are tons of custom mods for classic PC Games, but SideQuest is even easier to set up much of the time.
I'm glad DF finally drank VR koolaid :D
I'm thinking about buying a VR headset. Which one would you recommend? I'm not good at that.
@@Chasm9 The answer to that question entirely depends on your budget/commitment for VR. Generally Quest 2 is the easiest pick because it works fine without a PC for the most popular games and is a decent headset when linked with one.
Thanks for again adding the chapters into the TH-cam video instead of just descriptions!
Nothing like getting to work on a Monday with DF in the background. Keep it up, good folks.
On the backwards compatibility thing, the pixel perfect mode for DS games on the 3DS is actually great if you're using one of the XL models. The shrunken image actually ends up being similar in size to the screens on the original DS, DS Lite, or DSi.
Glad you are back on the VR train John! I got a psvr2 and a Qest3 as well and the quest3 really impressed me with the wireless vr and hand tracking. Assassins creed is also surprisingly good and complete, not a demo, an actual game.
I'm glad you can play an actual game and not a demo... Good for you honestly! and I'm sure that justifies spending thousands of dollars on a dying ecosystem that no major publishers code for and the best you can hope for from major developers is a port or two a couple of years after the game's launch, if you're lucky.
@@GreatDeadGod Thousands of dollars? The Quest 3 is $499🤷♂
@@Coxy-b34 Yes, but the OP said he bought a PSVR 2 and a Meta3, those alone are just over $1000, I bet you the OP also has other Headsets, doubtful he owns just those 2 new ones.
@@christopher2684 The OP was referring to Assassins Creed on the Quest 3 but if you do include his PSVR2 the would bring the sum to $1049.
Hardly thousands is it and bringing what you imagine someone has spent on other VR hardware into the equation is nonsensical.
@@GreatDeadGodwhy is your post so angry towards a stranger who says they enjoy VR? I own a PSVR2 and play it quite regularly. They have added a lot of 3rd party games to the list, even though they’re not advertising them, and my main use case is with GT7! I have a wheel and it’s truly a game changer. It’s worth it, to me, just for that game alone. I await any untoward response you may have for me just because I own and enjoy a VR device. 😊
2h 11mins? Thank god. This podcast is getting me through all week but often I’ll be done by Tuesday
PlayStation Portal not having a browser and thus unable to access public wifi is shocking.
Removing the HDMI cable from the PS5 reduced lag for me. I don’t know how this works but I’ve just tried it and it does!!
I have an LG C9 with the PS5 connected to a Hue Sync Box and the Hue Sync Box connected to the TV.
I don’t have a Portal yet but I have the PlayStation Backbone controller and use remote play often with my iPhone 14 Pro Max and remote play works flawlessly with my Series X but whenever I tried with the PS5, I’d have to wait for about 5-10 minutes before games were playable.
The way I’d test it would be by going to the home menu and pressing the d-pad to cycle between games. It would sort of freeze for a second on a game before eventually catching up with a different game tile highlighted.
I put my console into rest mode, unplugged the HDMI from my console and tried that test again. It cycled through the games and menus lag free!
Hopefully Sony can release an update that if you’re connected by remote play, it doesn’t trigger CEC from switching the console on.
Now to source a Portal for my wife to get me for Christmas…
Can't believe you all talked about arcade racing games at home and NO mention of Crus'n Blast... it was an incredible throwback.
You'll get over it
I'm not sure why someone would think you could get a "small more capable laptop" for the price of a ROG Ally.
I got the same type of discussion with a guy who said "the steam deck doesn't do much, I can find a gaming laptop within the same price range" but couldn't show me a link to an actual gaming laptop that costs 400$
@@rangokfunkazuul8344 I'm just disappointed in John here. A portable VRR device that does 120 Hz. Speakers are great too.
@@TheSentientmeat of course, we're living in a time where everybody is able to produce a really great gaming device, which is fantastic
1:58:50 The same can be said about PS4/Pro and PS5.
As a video editor I appreciated the discussion on encoding and upload settings immensely, always trying to get better results from TH-cam uploads 👌 I also wouldn't doubt whoever's doing these games trailers are just using the TH-cam render preset in these programs because they don't know any better
I think Alex meant the -O optimization for the C compiler that was missing from Mario 64 in the original code. The decompiling project fixed that and made that game run much faster in original hardware.
it's very interesting to know that there is a decent "FOMO" market for something like the PS Portal
but it doesn't change the fact that it's a niche device ( with lots of requirements to work half decently) for a very niche audience
what we're actually get if the industry decided to sell only an overprice trash in the market. good luck with that option @@robf
I’m not sure it’s that niche. Anyone with kids or a partner that hogs the tv might be its target market. And people who like playing in places other than their living room.
John: "Why people loved the Arkham games?" I'd say a lot of people (including me) loved them because Rocksteady made you feel like Batman. Now you're generic "Haloguy" with a Harley Quinn skin and the shooting is not designed by Bungie. But hey, so many people spend outrageous amounts of money on skins so maybe the game will find success.
This show is my single favorite thing to watch on TH-cam.
I get giddy every time I see a new episode.
If the SteamDeck’s theoretical advantage is its performance at low wattage, that is torpedoed for me by its large size. I don’t want such a gigantic device on the bus. And most of us pleebs aren’t flying on the regular, but many of us take public transit regularly. And the battery life is sufficient for many of us for that. Keeping in mind the battery only needs to last one way, as many of us can recharge at our destination before the return trip.
the only Portal i want in my life now is Nintendo 64's Portal version! it's awesome
One of Rich's first answers says all you need to know about the PlayStation Portal. "The Wii U was built from the group up for second screen streaming, whereas the PlayStation Portal is just a hardware add-on". Disappointing that this custom hardware SOLD for streaming clearly wasn't actually custom hardware BUILT for streaming.
"There's no secret sauce here" -- "that's what you'd expect from Sony" -- "I've seen no evidence of that".
Isn’t he talking about the actual PS5 Console though? Not defending PS Portal by any means, but is there a lot to be done when PS5 itself wasn’t built for it?
Regarding Alex's "export thing" Bethesda used the wrong compiler on Skyrim. A modder did it in the correct version and uploaded a .exe, and it provided something like a 20% FPS boost immediately. It was a pretty embarrassing look for Bethesda.
I got CRT scanlines slightly burned-in on my 4K lg oled so I'm not too keen on using HDR crt scanlines with the retrotink 4K, and now with this price..
25:30 stop saying it's a good device! It's as expensive as a PS5 or a mid range smartphone and all it can do is laggy local streaming. You can't even connect your Bluetooth headphones to it!!!!!
I started paying attention more after the first time i heard DF crew talking about the youtube upload topic and yes indeed they do have clearer videos than a LOT of other outlets.
Glad we have people like this figuring out how to deliver quality content
John, make sure to test the Bigscreen Beyond in your VR headset roundup. It has a wire but it also has the most glorious high res OLED screen of any headset currently available.
Please, for the love of everything Holy, keep the content coming. I love that you are making the Directs longer. I look forward to every Monday, coming into work and turning on DF.
The biggest issues with remote play are not related to the network connection. The encode/decode has too much latency. On the same network moonlight has a fraction (not exaggerating) of the added latency.
I can share with you a better solution albeit a bit more expensive "if" you don't currently own a PC. If you do own a PC. Buy $200 Elgato 4K60 pro. Connect your PS5 to the capture card and download OBS to the PC and configure it to stream. Then Download Moonlight to your android device and you can stream your PS5 wherever and at whatever resolution your internet can handle. Way better experience for roughly the same price if you already own a PC. Also it's way more stable.
I use a 15" Samsung Tab S8 Ultra on a swivel mount by my bedside. It's Oled and I play on 4K60 using gigabit internet wired to the tablet using a USBC ethernet hub and my dualsense connected to the PS5 so you still get the Dualsense haptics.
I love my Ally, for battery made a 18w power profile. A happy medium between 15w and 25w stock profiles.
Congrats Rich,EA are no longer outsourcing QA, they fired them too and they’re getting DF to test. Your payslip is in the post.
The "router" joke must be making me feel how every other culture feels when Americans joke about their pronunciations lol thank you for that experience
IMO for the price they should at least using PS1 games to be played native. And you got a good point over the signal capacity. I work at IT and signal is still a huge problem because here in Brazil ours houses and apartaments are made with bricks, not to mention apartaments are so much close to each others making interference a colossal problem to be fixed. All this do fight with your router QoS.
Is impressive how we got mix bag Playstation Portal, with was made by a company that have a huge historic of doing portable devices like PSP and PSvita, and at the same time we have Valve doing heavens with the Steam Deck OLED.
No comments about Suicide Squad. Will be dead at arrival.
The #1 criticism I have with the ROG Ally is the battery.
Saying you want a light weight system is fine but when your processor performs optimally at 20 watts it needs a 60Wh battery, (50% larger than what it has now).
Definitely that’s why I only play indie games people who expect to play triple A games on the deck or ally for 2 hours will be highly disappointed
@@Bootlickerkicker And then the kicker is those same indie games you need to choose for good battery life on the Ally would get around 50% longer runtime on Steamdeck OLED.
I wasn't a fan of Steamdeck when it was introduced because I thought "surely such a weak chip will quickly be shown as inferior", and now I own one because all indications point to the Van Gogh APU being so expertly tailored that no commercially viable chip will outperform it any time soon.
Generational gains from the 6800u to 7840u in gaming benchmarks have been minimal, which means even if Valve had committed to producing an RDNA3 Steamdeck it would have been virtually identical to the performance we already got with Steamdeck OLED anyway.
At this point my money is on the table betting the battery life of Steamdeck OLED won't be beaten by any handheld PC until Steamdeck 2.
About Starfield I think we also should be fair when saying "modders figured it out in 4 hours" because probably there are modders out there that are more familiar with the engine than actual BGS employee's.
And this isn't a drag or anything, it's very possible considering that the modders have been working on it since Fallout 3 (or even before, I'm using it as a reference because it's the game BGS "forked" to make the Creation Engine), and BGS has hired a bunch of new devs between 2016 and 2023 (specially during Fallout 76, considering that BGS was basically creating an "excuse" to hire more people to later realocate to Starfield)
The Portal is the most Cult-of-Apple product Sony has ever released. I've seen all the popular arguments for why it exists, yet I'm still convinced that this thing's primary purpose is to milk more money from PlayStation diehards.
Come on guys, you are supposed to be gaming tech experts.
Xbox One has the following features that are not available on the Series consoles:
1) HDMI in port
2) USB TV tuner add on with guide too
3) Disc drive (Series S doesn't have one, obviously Series X does)
4) and the biggie... Kinect compatibility!
I use the ROG Ally. It works well for me because in most use cases I can plug it in at some point. At work, in an airport or on a plane, in a hotel, or at a family member's house during the holidays. The times I don't have it plugged in are few and far between.
Same for me. I love to use it on the sofa or bed. And both have a usb c cable nearby.
But ofc I would love a better battery life.
@@norskluna I definitely would as well nothing crazy just 3-4 hours running at full tilt.
Thanks for the EA Sports WRC update. Would love to see a dedicated video comparing the PC game to the consoles. Please dig deeper on the issues that the PC version has... there is definitely something wrong with the frame pacing and frame rate in general. The 0.1% lows on the PC are huge even on Alder lake CPUs and up... the game appears to be CPU limited at mid to high FPS (120-165) even on the lowest settings when visually it has no right to be CPU limited... it's just odd.
It may well benefit from x3d L3 cache, much like ACC.
@@tyrantworm7392 This is probably true. It's a shame that EA WRC which arguably doesn't look much better than the 5yo Dirt Rally 2.0 might require an x3D CPU to brute force the game to run stutter free past 120fps.
1:46:00 I think it was Morrowind that shipped without optimization flags, hard to find documentation about it without the wayback machine. Randy Pitchford's Aliens: Colonial Marines had a single spelling error in the code that nullified the Alien AI. They spelled tether as "teather" which caused the Aliens to just stand there and hiss at the player when they had animations and interactions for crawling, climbing, diving, dashing, venting etc. Shipping an Aliens game without AI is my all time favorite.
Has John actually used the Portal?
Appreciate Rich looking to the camera and saying, "that doesn't really happen," with regards to paid reviews. Makes me feel better :)
The new Sony portable looks so bad
What a downgrade from their real portable devices
IGN’s video review of EA WRC also showed and lamented the horrendous performance and bizzaro stutters of the console versions. Think this one definitely needs a DF review and a lot more spotlight…
Nobody cared about WRC games until EA put their name on it, that’s more interesting discussion to me
I would love a PS Portal vs Wii U gamepad analysis😍
It's trash. What do you want to know specifically?
WiiU is a superior experience. I played some Spider-Man 2 at work on my Portal and I yearn for consistent frame rates and resolutions. Also, latency was a big issue in combat in SM2.
Hmm.. The PS Portal is Pixel streaming. Ofc there will be SOME day compare to a wired connection to your PC. FYI grab a PCVR Headset and you will also hear audio delay on the HDM vs Sound card. Try Quest 2/3 Link streaming... I think I got the point across :) If it's acceptable and not noticeable with the naked eye.. they win. The rest is just trying to nick-pick ?! (Although, all the points you make are valid, so there is that as well ^_^)
Awesome Direct DF ;)
the PS Portal discussion nailed all the gripes i had with how its being reviewed, like sure it performs well with excellent wi-fi but how's the portal actually? let alone the latency it has. glad there's more discussions like these bc Sony really missed the mark with this one
I tried the Bloodborne via PS remote play on PC. Input lag was noticeable but was better than I expected. While image quality was lower resolution, video compression somehow improved anti-aliasing effect.
20:33 that has happened. Many times. There has been enough reports around regarding hardware manufacturers paying or coercing youtube reviewers to confirm this. Is it happening with Sony in this case? Possibly not but Rich's assertions are provably false and the defensive position for somebody in the industry for so long is rather strange.
Your citation of GamerNexus’ report on MSI was a bust.
Care to provide any other sources that actually support your claim?
Or are you firmly in the “feelings over facts” camp?
@@earlyriser03 I'm claiming human nature is corruptable.
@@dab88 no, you were claiming Rich was being dishonest with no proof. So unless you have insight into his mindset or proof that undermines his experiences and integrity, you’re being ridiculously irrational.
In other words, your feelings are overriding any and all facts.
@@earlyriser03 dishonest? I said he was being defensive. He's not making such statements with even an smidge of nuance. Why do you keep going on about feelings and facts as if that has any actual bearing on what's being said?
@@dab88 and you clearly imply he is being dishonest by* claiming his response is “provably false”. I keep going on about feelings versus facts because YOUR beliefs, YOUR feelings are all you’re offering, NOT facts. You’ve yet to offer anything that undermines Rich’s personal experience or journalistic integrity. I’m waiting.
I know Codemasters said they switched engines for the longer stages, but Dirt Rally 1 had sizeable 19km stages with Pikes Peak. That's longer than anything they put into Dirt Rally 2.0, where the longest was like ~14km? Still a far cry from the handful of 30km+ stages in WRC, I know. Many locations are still around the ~20km range for their longest ones, however.
Feel like they could have made longer stages work in Ego for WRC, even if it were too much effort to update Ego to support larger maps and longer stages. Maybe there's some memory limitation or hard map size limit where the roads might have to snake around more rather than extended point to point distances and have fewer unique roadside objects and details, but they could have fudged all that a bit, even if they were basing everything on real roads.
I can imagine the xperia 10 products haven't sold very well over the years so they will break down those SKUs and then turn either the Snapdragon 665/690/695 chipsets along with the speakers from those models into a playstation portal, the Xperia 10 models usually sell within the three hundred range, they did have a LCD screen for the first iteration for that device, if this is the case it would kind of make sense to use that also.
Idk but my previous phone was a xperia 1 with the 4k screen. Watching hdr blu ray rips on it was something special. No one ever talks about how cool those phones are.
@@eternalbeing3339 Yeah I have the Xperia 1v, (the flagship model) they're great devices, I don't use the cinema pro app/software much though but I think the Xperia devices go over people's heads due to Sony not marketing them much, I've bought multiple Sony phones over the years and as far a I recall I have never seen a advertisement for them especially via TH-cam.
I agree that TH-cam prioritizes 1080p. I have a channel that recently uploaded up to 3X 30 min video's every single day for 5 weeks- 1080p was 20 mins to publish at 480p(30 for 1080p), 1440p was almost 1hr. The file size difference was about 1gb(4gb for 1080p).
Even though the original content was 1080p, 1440p did improve visual quality on a larger screen, so used it when.......I couldn't sleep
i just got done beating ff7 intergrade with my portal and honestly was a very good experience to be honest if they could update it somehow to just be a constant smooth experience it would be golden!!! 💯
There's a whole world of PC-VR using Quest too John sir! I've been playing Portal 2 VR a lot lately, its so cool.
PS Portal sounds like a crock of shit. Terrible product that is vastly overpriced for what it does. They are relying on the ignorance of consumers who think it'll connect seamlessly through some propriety connection.
The tip toeing around how awful the portal is, is downright hilarious. They can't say it so Sony doesn't give them codes anymore. 😂😂😂
Woo-hoo! So glad to see so much VR attention, can't wait for John's VR Showdown! 😮 Nexus is a blast 🥷
I think Valve won't release a Steam Deck 2 with a significant performance boost until we see next-gen home consoles or a very significant mid-gen enhancement to home consoles. Valve was very smart to release the Steam Deck using the same Zen 1 architecture as the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S relatively early in their lifecycle. Xbox Series S being the low-end hardware that developers basically must support for the entirety of this console generation, most next-gen games should be able to at least run on Steam Deck at a similar settings profile, but targeting lower resolutions. The continual improvement of upscaling technologies like FSR should also help ensure Steam Deck is relevant for quite a while. The games with poor optimization for PC in general won't be able to run, we're already starting to see that, but I think the majority, especially the big games which will receive frequent updates post-launch, should be in a playable state. One thing that is encouraging is we've seen pretty big improvements to the performance of games through patches and software updates - Guardians of the Galaxy Steam Deck couldn't maintain 30FPS on Steam Deck originally, but now users have been able to push it to target 40FPS for the game now.
I got a PS Portal for my 10 year old for Christmas because I have the PS5 on my main TV for 120hz but with him getting more into gaming, I need my TV back from Fortnite and Roblox along with everything else he is playing.
Edit: I want the tv for regular TV and Series X use.
You can’t use the ps5 when he’s using the portal. Unless you mean you want the tv for other stuff, in that case why spend $200 on a cheap product an not another tv?
@@TheBean87lol yes regular TV use and also Series X use. Been meaning to get into Starfield but haven't had much time with it.
@@twocityfoodies8476well than I guess you made a good choice. Personally I would have bought a 40” tv to set up in another room. But if you are happy that’s all that matters.
Emulation doesnt cost $750.00.
I've had a great experience with the Playstation Portal. I get a hiccup every now and then, but it's allowed me to play in bed, and I'm even gonna try it away from home next. The image quality looks pretty good to me, I haven't noticed any loss in image quality. But I'm sure Digital Foundry can do a video comparison to show me what I'm missing so I can feel bad about it.
PS5 doesn’t support 3D Blu-ray’s, it breaks some PS4 games, it breaks some emulated PS2 games and some PSVR games. So there is a reason to keep your PS4.
John’s gotta learn to let (Daddy) Richard finish making his (usually excellent) point without interrupting.
Quick point about this Sony portal: Why didn't they allow direct connection between it and playstation, not just for remote play, but as a second screen like the wii u, for maps, inventory etc etc
Nothing better than a Saturday with The Dynamic Trio!! We’ve got Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and of course Paul from Paul’s Hardware.
Goddamn you're right, never noticed how much John and Paul look alike. Could easily be long lost brothers.
Got a Quest 2 a few years back after not having played with VR since demo'ing the original Oculus. Got the Quest 3 a few weeks ago and was equally blown away by how far things have come; particularly the AR aspects of it but of course the screens and lenses as well.
Can't wait to get to DF's deconstruction of the PS Portal in this episode!
Same… I tried it out with great internet hardwired and it was bad. Yet remote play with my phone and ps5 controller worked amazing!!
@@Frisky_Panda Sorry to hear that! I'm thinking about the ROG Ally at this point, because the PS Portal has really been disappointing to me.
Waiting for that $100 dongle from Sony that implements WiFi direct. I can only assume that they didn't plan on releasing this product when they designed the PS5, as Nintendo did with the Wii U. Personally, I bought a Portal, but I'm an expecting father who lives in a small apartment with little signal noise from neighboring networks (most of which use 2.4 Ghz anyway). It's great for playing singleplayer games and particularly games that detect controller disconnections and pause the game when such a connection is lost. The Portal does have a tendency to randomly disconnect completely for really no reason, or at least with no discernible pattern. I use a very old router that was cheap even when it was new and I don't really see any different from what others are reporting on far more expensive routers. That being said, it seems that an ethernet connection is pretty much mandatory.
You have to temper your expectations with any cloud device, of course, but I think the people who use it aren't going to notice the things that DF and its audience do. Microsoft's cloud service is extremely popular despite being having absolutely disgusting visuals. It's seriously disgusting. And PSN's new streaming function is gorgeous, at least here in Japan, which leads to me believe that Sony is working on the technology and hopefully will carry it over to the Portal via an update. Even if they don't, however, I'm fairly content with what's on offer already. But that's my personal taste with my low expectations. I do agree with the viewer's question regarding misinformation, some of the early reviews I saw were absurdly positive to the point that I suspected Sony of selectively choosing to whom they sent review units.
DF Directs are a staple in my week, that I highly look forward to! Longer ones are always a super welcome surprise as well!
It'd be cool if John gave us a dedicated YT encode/export workflow video.
I would say its not reasonable to meet or exceed the wiiU as that had dedicated hardware for short distance signal sending. Portal will always be limited to your local network foibles. I would have liked the option of direct Wifi like they had before, or perhaps an optional dongle + Wifi 6E for less chance of network congestion
Yeah that's really disappointing. If they did something like the wii U, I would've picked It up. But I definitely won't be picking up a glorified remote play device (which isn't near as clear or perfectly smooth as some outlets have suggested).
23:20 Hey John you might get better performance out of a mesh wifi style network, rather than wifi repeaters/extenders.
I live in a granny flat next to the main building and found after upgrading to a mesh network it improved performance and also stopped random drop outs 👍
Im actually selling my ally and ive ordered the OLED deck, ive spent 6 months or so with the ally and while its been generally pretty good its become clear to me it just isnt the same experience as the deck, ive had an LCD deck shelved since getting the ally and ive tried to love the ally but i dont, the immediate turn on for the ally is the display but now that the deck has the OLED it kind of loses that advantage and almost everything else just swings in favour of the deck for me from battery life to OS down to the community support, theres nothing like getting a community made deck controller config and it just working amazing but you dont get that with the windows handhelds, then theres the accessories available, from hall effect sticks to cases, its just got that backing and after 6 months the ally does not have the same support. I also didn't find the ally to be anywhere near the performance jump i expected either, there was always a compromise to be made and often even needing to below native res which takes away from that resolution advantage the ally has to. Ive come to realize AAA games are just not for these handhelds and the thousands of indie games is where its at, and when it comes to those games the deck runs away with it... 30 plus watt on ally plugged in is impressive but nothing like as impressive as 4w on the deck and it still working well, the ally basically falls to sleep at 7w, almost everything is unplayable.
obviously im trying to make myself feel better about my decision ofcourse, if i didn't order the OLED id be singing the praises of the ally naturally but for real, reality is the deck is still the king, just is, but i had a pretty good time with ally, definitely one of the better windows devices, SD card aside.
Nice mellow pod to help me slide into my work week.
The Playstation Portal isn't for me, but it seems perfectly fine for "dad life".
I am curious what John thinks is an appropriate price for a dualsense controller, OLED and SoC?
$199 USD seems like a decent price when a retail dualsense white version is still $50.
It’s a lcd not oled, thing is worth $100 tops.
I think this is exactly who it's targeted at. Dad's who don't have the luxury of using the TV or a separate monitor whenever they have 20 minutes to spare and want to play some games. 1 TV families when Mum wants to watch some TV and Dad wants to play games.
When your phone display absolutely blows the ps portal LCD screen away
Truth.
That suicide squad trailer was funny. they hid the ui and spammed the character abilities (all of which have cooldowns) instead of focusing on the samey weapons (which will be the majority of how players will deal damage and play the game) just to give us the illusion that this is not a co-op looter shooter at heart. The Division (or the late Avengers) can be played entirely solo too but (1) it is still a looter shooter (2) it shows that it was made for co-op primarily.
To answer Alex's 'I don't know how you guys feel about boss level fights in looter shooters' I'd say it depends on the game. I never much cared for them in the division when I played that when it launched, but in something like destiny, the raid bosses and even some strike bosses are some of the best content in the game by far. My friend used to say the same thing about the bosses in borderlands 2, though I don't have much experience with that and can't personally attest to it.
The Steam Deck LCD is better now after the 3.5 update. You can set it to output sRGB and set the white point to 6500K. It's still an LCD, but it looks a lot better that way at least.
Why are people insisting on judging the Portal against features that it isn't designed to do? Some of this discussion is equivalent to me buying an xbox and complaining that I cant play Spiderman. Or buying a 400 quid PC and moaning that I can't play Cyberpunk on max settings.
It's a 200 quid remote play device with a dual sense bolted on to it. And currently, that's it. And we knew that when it was announced.
If you don't want one, don't buy one. But complaining about all of the things it can’t do (for 200 quid) is madness.
The discourse here is complaining for the sake of complaining.
Actually 200 for something so basic is worth complaining about. The fact you get the same experience as a cheap tablet speaks volumes as you can do more on the tablet.
@@TheBean87dual sense features and the comfort of a proper handheld would make it more appealing than a tablet remote play I'd imagine. If the tablet is fine for some, let them crack on. If other's want the Portal, let them crack on. Surely?
Alex said it best during his topic opener.
I don't think it is, personally I thought it was an own goal from the start and I was operating under the assumption that it did connect directly to the PS5, it's incredibly lazy at best and a meme at worst. Add to that if you don't want to use a wired headset you need to spend at least £150 or £200 for the ear buds or new headset because it has a proprietary connection, Sony could've conquered the mobile gaming space a long time ago if they didn't wed themselves to over expensive proprietary systems, UMD on the PSP and the memory cards on the Vita, I love my PS's and I loved the PSP and the Vita and when Sony get it right the make great hardware but when they get it wrong they don't fuck around.
As an aside I use my Steam Deck for remote play and it's fine and funnier still the ear buds I use are Sony WF C500's that wont work on the Portal because of it's proprietary wi-fi.
@@deanbaggio09 that it’s definitely for kids to free up the tv for the parents?
I have the Ally and the (now) OLED Deck. Like them both bunches. The Playstation Portal seems superfluous though.
Sony directly sites how important Digital Foundry is in the court case against Microsoft and consider DF during the QC process for new games.
They fact that they waited a week to send it out to DF proves that they knew exactly the kind of garbage fire they were releasing.
When an episode ends, I turn away from the screen, curl up into a ball and enter a hibernation state, eagerly awaiting a "notionally instant notification" for another Digital Foundry Direct to rouse me from my perpetual slumber... 😶
Ngl, Rich’s stern “Look…that doesn’t really happen” with a disapproving shake of his head gave me life.
except there's proof that it has happened. Go watch the GamersNexus stuff on MSI and their reps shady tactics regarding reviews. I don't appreciate the denial of such practices from Rich considering he heads up a gaming journalism organisation and has been in the industry for so long. How can he NOT know it's happened? Why is he making such a stance? This isn't the first times he's made such ludicrous claims.
@@dab88 thanks for telling me about that video. It was an informative watch. However, you’ve conflated its conclusion to call out Rich for something he didn’t actually say. To clarify, Rich was denying the question’s premise that reviewers were getting “paid off”, as in accepting bribes, NOT the fact that some companies attempt to bribe them in the first place, which the question didn’t address at all. Furthermore, nowhere in the GamersNexus video did Steve point out any instances of reviewers accepting bribes for their reviews. He acknowledged companies’ attempts to bribe, especially newbies (paying for dinners, travel, etc) and challenged people looking to get into independent media to decide how they want to conduct themselves. But, as you already admitted, the video was entirely about MSI’s unethical conduct, not reviewers getting “paid off”. Perhaps before you get worked up over someone’s “stance” in the future, you should make sure they actually took it first.
@@earlyriser03 I think it's beyond naive to conclude that despite companies attempting to bribe reviewers, the gaming industry is entirely clean and above board.
@@dab88 again, you conflated the conclusions of your cited source with something Rich didn’t say and your source doesn’t support. Is there a non-zero chance your claim is true? Maybe. But your “thinking” something is true isn’t proof, unlike Steve’s receipts or Rich’s decades of experience and proven journalistic integrity.
Just take your L and move along.
I wouldn't say it was a particularly personally compelling reason, but the Series consoles don't support the Xbox One Kinect sensors at all. If only for game preservation, that would be a reason to hang on to the last gen Xbox One consoles. (One S and X would also require an additional adapter since they lack the dedicated port)
If someone has a 6.8 inch, 120 Hz, Quad HD, AMOLED smartphone, what is the disadvantage of remote playing on that compared to remote playing on PS portal with its unimpressive 60 Hz, LCD?
You guys didn't cover the biggest news in gaming that had happened in the last decade. Alex Jones' game.
Playstation portal will go down in history as one of those weird gimmicky accessories to the console.
This episode should just be called "Router" lol that's how we say it in Canada as well. It's hilarious seeing Rich say it like its the most awkward thing ever 😂
It is awkward for us. We plan a 'root' from A to B not a 'rout'.
@shinramiddlemanager7949 oh I completely understand. It's just funny how unnatural it feels for him to say it 😂
I'm watching this podcast at 1080p60 and I gotta say: All three of you look crisp and nicely textured!
I would love to see a Wii U vs PS Portal comparison