Digital Foundry Direct Weekly

There's post PS5 Pro clarity in this week's Direct, with Rich, John and Alex discussing No Man's Sky at 8K resolution (tested!), God of War Ragnarök's patch on PS5 Pro - and the surprise arrival of Death Stranding on Xbox Series X/S. Rich does some performance testing there, leading to fascinating results. Meanwhile, John has a special moment with a new PC monitor, while Alex and Rich prostrate themselves before AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D. And yes, why DIDN'T the team do a full specs breakdown of the PS5 Pro's actual packaging? 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:08 News 1: God of War Ragnarök PS5 Pro patch tested! 0:13:36 News 2: Nintendo confirms Switch 2 backwards compatibility 0:25:27 News 3: Death Stranding lands on Xbox 0:38:11 News 4: No Man’s Sky patched for PS5 Pro 0:47:49 News 5: Sony INZONE M10S impressions 1:05:53 News 6: Sonic Generations can run at 60fps on Switch 1:11:42 Supporter Q1: Will you use the 9800X3D for high-end gaming benchmarks? 1:16:21 Supporter Q2: Will PS6 use 3D V-Cache? 1:17:32 Supporter Q3: Will Alex and John switch to 9800X3D? 1:22:15 Supporter Q4: Why is Game Boost falling short of the promised 45% increase to PS5 Pro raster performance? 1:29:21 Supporter Q5: Would AI frame extrapolation make native frame-rate unimportant? 1:32:30 Supporter Q6: What do you want out of a Steam Deck 2? 1:38:32 Supporter Q7: Why didn’t you spend more time analyzing the PS5 Pro box? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rich Leadbetter, John Linneman and Oliver Mackenzie combine their impressions and tests to deliver the Digital Foundry verdict on the PlayStation 5 Pro. How does the console improve PS5 and PS4 games? How good is PSSR based on testing across a range of games? And what of the enhanced RT features? Everything you need to know is right here. 0:00:00 Overview 0:01:00 Hardware impressions 0:05:44 8K support and display options 0:12:34 PS4 image quality enhancement 0:17:36 Game boost - Elden Ring and GPU bound games 0:32:01 Game boost - CPU bound games 0:35:57 Ray tracing upgrades 0:42:29 PSSR testing 0:58:02 Power consumption 1:05:16 Overall impressions - is PS5 Pro worth the money? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even though most of the team are concentrating on PS5 Pro content, we still managed to find the time for another episode of DF Direct Weekly. Tom joins Rich and John to discuss the death of Concord and the shuttering of Firewalk Studios, Indiana Jones and Mario & Luigi: Brothership, while Alex joins the fray later to talk Star Citizen, Squadron 42 and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered on PC. Meanwhile, in his spare time, John's been testing out a couple of alleged 'disaster remasters'... 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:13 News 1: Concord developer shuttered, game not coming back 0:18:16 News 2: Indiana Jones previewed! 0:31:56 News 3: Mario & Luigi: Brothership evaluated 0:42:47 News 4: Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered analyzed on PC 0:55:00 News 5: Shadows of the Damned is a ‘disaster remaster’ 1:05:32 News 6: Alex’s Star Citizen update 1:21:01 Supporter Q1: Do you still think mid-gen enhanced consoles are unnecessary? 1:28:29 Supporter Q2: Will PS5 Pro owners typically own 120Hz VRR panels? 1:34:43 Supporter Q3: Could the Series X support a form of ML-based upscaling? 1:37:23 Supporter Q4: Why did Call of Duty abandon ray tracing? 1:40:57 Supporter Q5: Why has checkerboard rendering disappeared from most modern games? 1:43:33 Supporter Q6: What has John contributed to the upcoming EGM Compendium? 1:47:02 Supporter Q7: Will Capcom adopt a more PC-centric approach in the future? 1:51:45 Supporter Q8: Will Nintendo pioneer revolutionary uses of RT on Switch 2? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another bumper Direct sees John, Rich and Oliver discuss Shawn Layden's call for a reset on game development practises and his comments on the console/teraflop war being over. Remedy's impressive roster of upgrades for Alan Wake 2 on PS5 Pro come into focus, while the team can't help but wonder if Guerrilla Games' most recent comments really do spell the end for the Killzone franchise. John shares first impressions on Sonic x Shadow Generations, while Oliver REALLY wants to tell you all about Wayfinder on the PlayStation 5. 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:04 News 1: Former Sony exec says console race has plateaued 0:22:43 News 2: Alan Wake 2 PS5 Pro previewed! 0:32:47 News 3: Guerrilla Games is done with Killzone 0:43:53 News 4: Wayfinder tested on PS5! 0:55:01 News 5: Sonic X Shadow Generations tested 1:06:28 News 6: Ragnarök PC performance improved 1:13:18 News 7: Silent Hill 2 PC patch decreases stutter 1:20:42 Supporter Q1: Could the next Xbox be a hybrid with a GPU in the dock? 1:26:37 Supporter Q2: Is the games industry becoming more risk-averse? 1:33:34 Supporter Q3 Is John still using his Meta Quest 3? 1:40:16 Supporter Q4: Does Guerrilla’s new image treatment solution stem from Death Stranding 2? 1:46:23 Supporter Q5: Has John played any modern game consoles on CRTs with the RetroTINK 4K? 1:50:32 Supporter Q6: How will you cope with covering so many PS5 Pro enhanced games? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices