Digital Foundry Direct Weekly

As another year comes to a close, Digital Foundry unleashes its traditional holiday video, celebrating the best game graphics of the year. Outside of some highly honourable mentions, ten games are lauded for their phenomenal visuals. John, Alex and Oliver share their thoughts in a massive 108-minute long celebration! 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:58 Honourable mentions: STALKER 2, Persona 3 Reload, Metaphor ReFantazio, Nightdive Studios, Tiny Glade, FF7 Rebirth, Power Rangers 0:20:46 Dragon’s Dogma 2 0:26:35 Riven 0:30:32 Dragon Age: The Veilguard 0:37:24 Silent Hill 2 0:48:50 Astro Bot 0:54:32 Penny’s Big Breakaway 0:58:05 Black Myth: Wukong 1:08:49 Top 3 Discussion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With an official announcement for Nintendo Switch 2 due in the next month or so, it's perhaps no surprise to see the leaks coming in thick and fast - but how believable are they? Meanwhile, Oliver gets to grips with the latest patch for Alan Wake 2 on PS5 Pro - is there genuine improvement? Rich tries to piece together the latest RTX 50-series rumours into something coherently plausible, while John examines the latest Switch IP-abusing shovelware: the mighty Monkey Kong in New-York. 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:09 News 1: Switch 2 leaks describe dock, magnetic connection 0:17:40 News 2: New Alan Wake 2 PS5 Pro patch tested! 0:28:14 News 3: Indiana Jones lighting improved on Xbox 0:35:32 News 4: New Legion Go uses SteamOS 0:49:50 News 5: RTX 50 series leaks continue 1:01:35 News 6: DF Supporter Game of the Year awards! 1:18:01 News 7: “Monkey Kong” hits Nintendo eShop 1:25:36 Supporter Q1: After the Mark Cerny interview, how do you think Sony will approach PS6? 1:33:47 Supporter Q2: How will Project Amethyst affect Microsoft’s relationship with AMD? 1:39:00 Supporter Q3: How will today’s high-end PC hardware compare to next gen consoles? 1:45:01 Supporter Q4: Why was PS3/360 game performance often so poor? 1:55:02 Supporter Q5: What do you make of FF7 Rebirth’s PC lighting upgrades? 1:58:54 Supporter Q6: What’s the best looking last gen game? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PlayStation lead system architect Mark Cerny has just 'quote-unquote' dropped a big new deep dive into the technology of the PlayStation 5 Pro. Oliver Mackenzie had the chance to see the presentation several weeks ago and we have an interview on our YouTube channel - but the Digital Foundry team have much to talk about based on the presentation - and here they are to do just that. 00:00 Introduction 01:53 GPU overview: RDNA 2.x, 16.7 TF 06:32 Ray tracing improvements 15:01 Machine learning and PSSR 26:27 The future: Amethyst, ML exploration, and next-gen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alert status is elevated to GEOFFCON 1 as we react to the major reveals - and other games that caught our attention - at The Game Awards 2024. What can we learn from The Witcher 4's cinematic trailer and the RTX 5090 that powered it? Is Intergalactic from Naughty Dog really rendering in real-time at 4K 60 with ray tracing? How good does Mafia: The Old Country look and just how wonderful was Split Fiction? Does Elden Ring Nightreign exhibit any evidence of technical progression whatsoever? All this and more in the new Direct, plus Oliver's analysis of the new PS5 Pro updates for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws. 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:25 News 1: The Game Awards 2024 - The Witcher 4 0:15:07 Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet 0:30:04 Split Fiction 0:37:33 Elden Ring Nightreign 0:42:57 Mafia: The Old Country 0:47:53 John’s picks: Ninja Gaiden, Virtua Fighter, Project Century, Turok. Onimusha, Okami, new GenDesign game 1:01:20 Oliver’s picks: FF7R PC, TLOU Pt 2 PC, Screamer, Sonic Racing 1:13:50 News 2: Avatar and Star Wars Outlaws PS5 Pro fixes tested! 1:26:31 News 3: LG discontinues Blu-Ray players 1:40:30 Supporter Q1: Will Doom: The Dark Ages have the same RT features as Indiana Jones? And should id Tech be licensed to other developers? 1:47:27 Supporter Q2: Why isn’t there a Cyberpunk 2077 PS5 Pro patch? 1:52:05 Supporter Q3: Should we be concerned about the Arc B580’s die size? 1:59:03 Supporter Q4: What would a hypothetical Arc B770 look like? 2:06:58 Supporter Q5: If Geoff was to give an award for game engine utilization, who would win? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices