What do you get when you cross Alice in Wonderland with Iron Man? Square Enix’s latest action RPG Forspoken aims to answer that question with its fish-out-of-water plot as protagonist Frey is cast into a world of dragons and magic. Built on the same Luminous Engine that powered the team’s last game, Final Fantasy XV, it features a similar open-world design that feels familiar, including animation, art, and creature design. increase.
resolution mode
three games Resolution mode, quality, ray tracing, and performance. Each also has a 120 Hz mode. Quality is targeted at 3840x2160p with Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DRS) enabled and can be scaled down by 75% total down to 1920×1080. Ray Tracing mode reduces the upper limit to 2880x1620p and scales as low as 1440×810. Both of these modes use FSR2 reconstruction to revert to 4K output when that level is not reached. This is always true in ray tracing mode, and often for quality. Finally, performance is targeted at 2560x1440p for both ceiling and FSR2 reconstructions, and can drop by 75% to lows of 1280×720. This mode improves performance to 60 fps over the previous two, which are limited to 30 fps.
The impact on image quality in performance mode is noticeable, but very small compared to the gains provided. That being said, if you have a screen like that, at least in theory, that 120Hz mode is a perfect compromise: enabling the 120Hz mode will give you both raytracing and quality modes His runs at 40fps. That said, the effects and settings are the same as his non-120Hz modes, but DRS has a 25% reduction in frame time, which often results in lower range in heavy-load sequences. In practice, this has a small impact on the image to improve fluidity and control. This is essential in a fast-paced, action-focused game like this.
The engine has high input latency, meaning that running at 30 fps yields a median of 225 ms in quality mode and 221 ms in ray tracing mode, but 115 ms in 60 fps performance mode. You get a significantly faster median. This is where the biggest boost comes from using a 120Hz screen, with quality and raytracing mode time cuts by about 30%, down to 163ms and 154ms respectively. This is due to a 25% reduction in frame time and the ability to switch to the next 8ms update when a frame is dropped, resulting in ~60ms reduction in median input time. it was done. The 60fps performance mode gains some from the 120Hz mode, but only with the expected 8ms frame time peak and a slight 7.2% improvement in fluidity.
So it is recommended to use 120Hz mode for all modes if possible without hitting frame rate. Otherwise, we recommend using performance mode. Cameras, movement, and combat are all greatly hampered in 30 fps mode as shown here.
performance
In theory, these settings should cover all bases. Unfortunately, in practice not all goals have been achieved. Starting in performance mode, I’m “targeting” 60 fps, but in high bandwidth sections with foliage, an opaque or partially translucent alpha effect drops the frame rate by 25-30% and takes 40 seconds Long sections in the mid-to-low 40s can occur. The game supports variable rate refresh (VRR), but these rates are below his VRR’s active range on his PS5 and you can still see and feel the dip.
With the 120Hz option turned on, performance mode is still limited to 60fps, but you can switch to at least 8ms if you experience drops. So this is still the fastest and most responsive mode. Then there’s Raytracing mode, which runs 8-14% faster than quality mode when running on a 120Hz screen, but still occasionally throws him back into the 30s often enough to feel the same. This isn’t always the case, and many sections of silent exploration and cutscenes don’t hit 40fps high, but expect some intense combat to take place somewhere in the middle.
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You may ask why I don’t run the unlock option on a 60Hz screen, but this causes frame times to spike between 16ms and 33ms when forced into a 60Hz container. However, on a 120 Hz screen, it scales to a rate of 40 fps in 25 ms. So the closer and more uniform the frame times, the smoother it feels. Unfortunately, quality mode is worse than ray tracing mode, often dropping below that at 40 fps and even dropping into the mid-20s. Again, dense and opaque pixel fill rates seem to be the main culprit. As such, the 40fps mode is better in theory, but in practice the quality mode is mostly not worth it, and the raytracing mode is better, but to be called a true middle-of-the-road option. is not yet close enough to that goal.
image quality and effect
Visually, the game is a mixture of old and new. World geometry, lighting, shadows, global illumination, specular lighting, etc. look great with high polygon count characters, good materials, and general facial and skeletal animation. Compared to Final Fantasy XV, resolution and image stability are particularly good, and even better than the PS4 Pro version of that game, but apart from the asset and resolution improvements, it doesn’t look generational enough. No. However, since Quality offers full 4K output, and Ray Tracing adds hybrid shadows with soft penumbras, more objects cast shadows to enhance accurate contact hardening. , the current generation increase is certainly provided.
Quality mode has more LoD than performance and raytracing modes, and even more shadow cascades and debris in certain areas. Raytracing has the highest quality, shadow cascades are mixed with raytraced shadows in the first cascade closest to the camera. These provide softer shadows and better ambient occlusion, but are not noticeably important to most players unless compared side by side. Quality mode is a bit sharper thanks to a contrast-adaptive sharpening pass in the engine, but in practice both modes are so similar that you can barely tell the difference after just a few minutes of play. Raytracing mode improves the character’s selfie shadowing in cutscenes, which is very common throughout the game.
The character models are well built and realized, but cutscenes often have issues, especially in the mouth, eyes, and nose, as the bones are rigged lower than in many modern games. This game relies on a combination of his capture and keyframe animation for performance. This is not only because some cinematics are a bigger leap than others, but also because there are huge gaps between scenes and even between models in model quality, lighting, materials and animation. means that it may occur. Textures are certainly one aspect, and mipmaps often run subpar assets in cutscenes. This highlights that the engine/game still needs some refinement here. We’re looking at PS5 details.
Loading
Despite being a PS5 and PC only game, the loading highlights the generational roots of the game. Taking full advantage of the PS5’s SSD and I/O design, the game takes less than two seconds to continue. The game loads slowly, just over 5 seconds. However, the main problem is the constant fading to black and loading that appears during play. Admittedly it’s 2-3 seconds at most most of the time, but the constant fade-in, stop-start nature of opening doors, leaving forts, fighting enemies, and even in cutscenes will disconnect you from the game. This is exacerbated by many sections being locked until the UI, dialog, or prompt loads. This was frustrating as it felt unnecessary and restrictive. In other words, the game didn’t feel like it tapped into some of the key aspects of the current generation of consoles, instead feeling like a cross-generational game.
sound production and mixing
With proper mixing and production, the effects are fine. The music isn’t bad, but it’s repetitive and horribly mixed, with the music clumsily fading out or stopping at certain points in the gameplay or cinematics before a new song begins. Because of this, the voice can struggle with the music, and the dialogue is far from top-notch.
overview
The Luminous Engine, which was introduced in FFXV just seven years ago, offers character models, cloth physics and hair that rival the best in the industry. Forspoken surpasses that game in almost every aspect, but the game industry has evolved since then and the engine has not kept up. What it offers is vast lands, high graphic quality, and a wide range of modes. Sadly, none of them hit the expected mark in both quality and consistency.We hope the patch can fix some of the performance and quality issues listed here.
