The latest DF Direct Weekly has landed – and it’s a first. Owing to various commitments to deep-dive projects, only John Linneman and myself were available to film this one and it begins with thoughts and impressions on the new Cyberpunk 2077 ‘next-gen’ patch, which Tom Morgan covered extensively just yesterday. There’s also discussion on why we chose not to take another look at the game on PC: ultimately, our settings recommendations remain the same, even though ray traced local shadows have been added to the game in addition to all of the other RT loveliness already contained therein.
There’s also good news with Dying Light 2’s performance upgrade for Xbox Series X owners with a variable refresh rate (VRR) display. This mode is curious. Essentially, VRR puts the GPU in control of when to refresh the screen rather than running at a standard 60Hz or 120Hz. Techland uses VRR plus 120Hz support to run Dying Light 2 in excess of the standard 60fps cap, seeing the game operate more typically at 80-100fps. This is a dramatic improvement to frame-time (60fps at 16.7ms per frame vs, say, 90fps at 11.1ms), producing a smoother game with lower lag. Yes, frame-rate is variable, but a typical VRR window of 80-100fps translates into a floating per-frame render time in the 10ms to 12.5ms range – the fluctuations are difficult for the average player to pick up, but the improved response and fluidity is effectively a constant. This, along with the 40fps mode in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, are fascinating examples of how developers are tapping into the capabilities of HDMI 2.1-equipped televisions.
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