DF Direct Weekly talks Metro Exodus Enhanced and Returnal
Plus DirectStorage, sampler feedback streaming and more.
It's Monday and even though it's a public holiday in the UK, DF Direct Weekly continues! It's Digital Foundry's regular show where the team take a break from their various projects to talk about the news, discuss events, share behind the scenes talk on their latest projects and answer a big bunch of questions from supporters. And it's a special show in that it's the first we've put out since relaunching our Patreon as the Digital Foundry Supporter Program.
We actually filmed this one on the morning of the relaunch and had literally no idea of how well - or not - it would be received. You can read the full pitch here but let's say that we're massively thankful for the take-up we've seen on the new offering and the positive feedback we've received from supporters old and new. For us, this is about sustainability in terms of bringing in new contributors, insulating us to a certain extent from the YouTube Algorithm and also providing a solid base on which to grow DF Retro - one of the most important parts of what we do.
We talk about that in the show of course, but in terms of raw content, it's all about Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition - the first triple-A game engine to be entirely based on ray tracing with no fallback to a standard rasterised pipeline (there's Metro Exodus 2019 for that). In the show, we discuss the implications of 4A Games being the first big studio to fully embrace RT and what we should expect from the upcoming next-gen console versions. Beyond that, we talk about DirectStorage and sampler feedback streaming in DX12 Ultimate, as showcased at Microsoft's recent GameStack event, we return - once again - to Mortal Shell for an update on its most recent PS5 patch and then we pivot to talk about Returnal, a phenomenal first party exclusive from Housemarque for PS5.
The show ends - as usual - with an extended supporter Q+A session where we tackle the 'perception' of 60fps, why it is that transparency effects in games are capable of tanking performance so heavily, whether we'd produce content that uses injection of modern rendering techniques to spruce up old PC games and whether we're capable of delivering 120 frames per second video. We really enjoy taking time out to record these shows and hope you enjoy them too. And yes, one final word for the DF Supporter Program - early access to the show is available, so you can watch or listen on Saturday instead of Monday if that appeals!