Introduction black myth woo Kong it's one of the most interesting console games I've seen in a long while interesting being the operative word really there are three Graphics modes on offer yet none of them ultimately produce a satisfactory experience from a technical perspective and I'm also getting the sense that it's the kind of game Taylor Made for PlayStation 5 Pro upgrades assuming the power of the machine is put to good use so here's the deal with this video I'm going to track the performance of the PS5 version up against our Frankenstein's PC Xbox CPU and nearest equivalent PC GPU uh to calibrate the console version up against PC if you like on matching settings then I'm going to suggest my own quality balance and performance modes for console level Hardware because I do think that while this game is extremely challenging uh a potentially better job could have been done on mode selection then and this is where we take a bit more of a flight of fancy we're going to find a GPU that offers a similar feature set to PS5 Pro to see how black miwuk Kong or BMW as we sometimes call it could be enhanced on a more powerful console and then well then we're going to do the reverse find a GPU that's similar to Xbox series s and try to figure out what challenges game science may have had in getting the game running on Junior Microsoft hardware for start up let's quickly recap on what BMW is doing on PlayStation 5 quality mode targets 4K and does a dynamic resolution between 12 24p and 1584 P using FSR upscaling frame rate looks to be unlocked to my eye so I'm curious how the dynamic resolution system may be working even so I think this is the most competent mode in the current game in terms of execution at least next up the balance mode looks like a hard set 1080p resolution here with no Dynamic resolution scaling but an utterly bizarre 45 FPS cap which makes it look jerky on any display likely to be connected to the PlayStation 5 no DRS makes this a good fit for profiling the console version of the game up against PC which we'll be doing shortly finally there's the performance mode this is using frame generation from 30 fps to 60 FPS this is fundamentally a bad idea as one of the key ideas behind performance mode to begin with is to reduce input lag not to increase it as is the case here let's take a quick look at console settings here and this table actually Optimised and PS5 Equivalent Settings shows our optimized settings compromised settings for Less capable gpus and then PlayStation 5 bizarre texture issues apart and with variation in the visual effects preset we find that the developer choices for PlayStation 5 match our compromised settings our feeling is that g game science have set a bar on visual features here that they didn't really want to lower any further perhaps we can understand that truth is the cuts to vegetation and Global illumination that separate optimized from compromised are already arguably a step too far so let's begin by talking about how BMW's quality modes could be improved uh honestly the precedents have been set by countless other titles but I think the most recent best examples of mode selection are found in the Ubisoft massive titles Avatar frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws you get a 30 FPS quality mode a 40 FPS balance mode that runs in a 120 HZ container for consistent frame pacing and finally a 60fps performance mode no frame generation used there here's how the PS5 vs Frankenstein's PC Benchmarking Frankenstein's PC Stacks up against PlayStation 5 in the info section which is extraordinarily demanding on the GPU more so than the vast bulk of game content but balance mode locks resolution we know the console equivalent settings and we can add a 45 FPS cap to the PC version easily enough just as there is on the PS5 for some reason the console is outperforming the Frankenstein's PC by a consistent 5 to 10% depending on the content uh when the content isn't limited to that bizarre 45 FPS anyway typically the 6700 is a little faster in our other comparisons so this is quite the the puzzle but remember the ps5s GPU compiler is different Plus game science may have more granular game optimizations and settings tweaks included but this sets the expectation level on how much faster or actually slower RPC suraka is compared to real PS5 Hardware you'll note that both PlayStation 5 and PC have stutter but it looks like the PC version is more unduly affected there can be effective parity between the two iterations seen here but seemingly that's not so common so with that in mind we need to factor in the PS5 iterations of PC projections here will likely have a similar kind of Advantage meaning that whatever we choose would likely run slightly faster on the Improving Quality Mode: 30FPS Capped console but let's start with the quality mode uh I think this is actually the easiest way to improve BMW for PS5 owners right now there's no 30fps cap I think it may actually have the same 45 FPS cap as the balance mode actually based on my own captures it's just that the higher resolution keeps frame rate down into the 30s a consistent 33.3 milliseconds per frame would make all the difference along with a switch from FSR upscaling to epic's own TSR which is what I'm suggesting here there is no DRS on the PC version unfortunately so I'm using TSR at 50% here so effectively a 4K output from a 1080p input here's how that compares to to the actual PS5 quality mode frame rate is far more consistent than PlayStation 5 where the extra frames above 30 just introduced micro starter check out the difference in the frame time graph what we're doing on PC at the same quality settings ensures few dips between 30 FPS and perceptually smoother motion I should say that I'm using kalan's Special K to get this frame rate lock as it's better than the in-game 30fps cap which does not respect cons consistent frame pacing with vsync active I'll try to illustrate that here just by slowly panning around you'll notice some hitching on PlayStation 5 owing to the unlocked performance level extra frames that I'd actually say detract from the experience but switching to a similar scene with a properly locked consistent 30 you actually get a smoother experience one thing I can't show on PC is the effect of dynamic resolution scaling because it's not implemented in the PC version of the game but what I can do is to compare locked 30fps performance with unlocked performance in matched content when the red and orange lines merge you're looking at lower bounds DRS but where the red line Rises higher that indicates extra GPU power that the console version could redirect towards higher resolution I honestly think this is a pretty simple tweak that game science could introduce to the existing game it's by far the easy easiest mode to quote unquote fix balance mode next Improving Balance Mode: 40FPS/120Hz where I think Ubisoft massive solution of opting for 40 FPS mode with a 120 HZ container 25 milliseconds per frame is the best solution I'm skipping straight to the 40 FPS versus unlocked performance test here to again show with the red line how much GPU resources are available in any given scene the higher you push frames per second in Blackmouth Wukong the harder it is to to maintain consistent performance even if you're reducing resolution which is exactly what I'm doing here funly enough I dropped output resolution to 1728 P 80% of 4K TSR 50% means we're upscaling from 864p here sounds low but looks fine overall and remember a console version could tap into Dynamic resolution scaling red diverting unused GPU Cycles to rendering delivering a higher resolution thing is I thought FPS balance mode would still be tricky to achieve based on my tests I'm at 120 H Herz here with Special K locking to 1/3 the refresh the GPU is especially taxed here which explains some of the blips on the frame time graph uh during gameplay remember that based on our like for--like benching PS5 would likely run a touch faster which may make up the difference but another Stress Test shows genuine sustained GPU drops the face off against the massive wolf causes issues especially especially when fiery VFX are also in play this is an example of what I'm talking about with this game the higher you scale resolution uh performance is seemingly impacted disproportionately compared to other games maybe there's a memory bandwidth limitation here even so this does not bode well for an actual 60fps performance mode which we'll get to in a minute anyway 40 FPS balance mode I'd say it's viable and based on the results here it does exactly what it's supposed to do nip and Tuck at the Quality mod resolution but exchange it for Far Far smoother gameplay a frame time reduction of 8.3 milliseconds and yes a good halfway house between a 30 FPS mode and a 60 FPS option now we're going to tackle a performance mode and man this Improving Performance Mode: 60FPS - No Frame-Gen is certainly a tricky one game science's solution here was to take its balance mode and to add frame generation to cabet 60 therefore at best this is running internally at 30 frames per second uh with frame gen boosting that to 60 and it just doesn't work on a number of levels first of all it's easily the laggiest way to play the game on PS5 completely at odds with the basic notion of what a performance mode should be adding to the game sharper crisper response as well as more frames secondly with a 16.7 millisecond per frame persistence the generated frames are more obvious to the human eye than they should be this is almost an abuse of AMD frame generation technology they mandate a 60fps minimum but I think a 40 FPS minimum with an unlocked frame rate works well enough for vrr screens as seen in the recent Immortals of AVM frame Generation update on consoles okay then so first of all i' tried my own spin on a performance mode targeting 60 FPS without frame gen and it turns out that the best balance of settings and resolution here is exactly how Alex tackled the same problem in his PC performance video with the RTX 2070 super GPU that's in a very similar ballpark performance- wise to the RX 6700 and therefore to the PlayStation 5 so we're still on high settings here across the board similar to PS5 but with improved textures but we're using TSR to upscale from 720p to 1080p so compared to game science's solution I'm reducing resolution but increasing upscaling quality from a switch from FSR to TSR and of course course without frame gen DRS could be used to increase resolution when spare GPU Cycles are available sticking to the forest level here as the info isn't indicative of performance across the whole game and on the whole the Outlook is good obviously it's not as high in internal resolution as the ps5s performance mode which is using the same 1080p as balance mode however without frame gen we get that all important drop to input lag and we don't have the ugly frame generation artifacts it's not 100% stable the combination of high density fur effects and fiery VFX sees performance drop into the low to mid-50s in this stress test and really push the effects hard and you're well into the 40s here but remember console typically runs faster than my PC equivalent it wouldn't be perfect but I think it could work especially in vrr mode thing is I don't see why black myth Wukong shouldn't use frame gen it should just be deployed in a way that works and to demonstrate that what I've done here is to increase output resolution to 1440p upscale from the same 720p and then kick in frame generation in a 120 HZ container with vrr enabled we can't show vrr on YouTube but sticking with vsync off here shows the kind of frame times and consistency you'll get when the game's not stuttering it's smooth and consistent frame rates are in the mid-70s to the mid '90s and I honestly think this is the way to go for frame gen ensure the base frame rate is high enough then add frame gen within a 120 HZ container pretty much how it was done in Immortals of avium let's go back to the boss stress test when things are really busy we can hit the mid 60s typically can even dip into the 50s kind of like the actual PS5 performance mode but at least unlocked at 120 HZ we are typically way above love that something for game science to consider I'd say so now let's move on to the Intriguing part of this exercise blacksmith Wukong is How PS5 Pro Could Improve Black Myth: Wukong clearly a super demanding game and I think it's tailor made for PS5 Pro assuming game science properly deploys the new consol's features and those features consist of raw GPU power roughly 45% to the better compared to PlayStation 5 augmented with enhanced rate racing features the nature of which we don't really know at the moment uh and a machine learning block that should hopefully produce results in the ballpark of Nvidia dlss So What GPU in the PC lineup ticks all of those features not an AMD one unfortunately as there is no machine learning Hardware like PS5 Pro and no enhanced raate racing I settled on the Nvidia RTX 3070 TI which seems to offer much the same feature set moted for the pro and does indeed tend to run around 45% to the better up against a base PlayStation 5 let's be clear here we're talking about broadly similar projected performance here nothing more but even so the effects could be transformative in this game looking first of all at a quality mode targeting 30 frames per second we get a far far superior result I can run this at a mixture of ps5s high along with very high Global illumination and very high Reflections so ultimately the settings here are actually slightly better than our own optimized settings selection for PC but the big deal here is really the Improvement to image quality brought about by Machine learning based upscaling okay so dlss it's class leading we have no real idea right now of how good PS5 Pros RT features are so I'm not going to be looking into this here but even without RT it's a startlingly decent presentation performance-wise there are a few variances from the target 30 FPS we make our way through the wolf boss section with full fiery effects and extreme hair closeups and everything's fine even the super demanding info to the game only has a single momentary dip below the target 30 frames per second once we factor out the annoying traversal stuttering we're locked at 1440p base resolution here but of course there's every possibility that Sony's own pssr solution will support Dynamic resolution a 1080p to 2160p window could allow for even more of the settings to be wrapped up to the very high or even cinematic presets depending on their load but really it's the potential performance mode improvements you're infested in right now remember we were targeting an upscale 1080p on our base PS5 PC equivalent and we can do so much more here I set up a 17 28p custom resolution 8 80% of 4k on both axis and set a base resolution of 50% using dlss to upscale settings here are kept at the same high preset as the PlayStation 5 but of course we are using improved texture quality this is certainly a good improvement over the bass ps5s frame generated Extravaganza and certainly eclipses the upscale 1080p alternative I suggested earlier but we do still have some minor dips beneath 60fps with the arrangement you see here it doesn't happen that often the drops are fairly minimal but we are talking about an 864p base resolution here it's an example of how difficult it is to scale up performance on black myth Wukong even with performance that I suspect is broadly in line with what the PlayStation 5 Pro can achieve let's just say I'm very very interested to see how a PS5 pro version of BMW is actually going to shake out finally I've talked about this a bit on DF direct weekly but I also wanted to see whether Xbox series s- level horsepower could handle Blackmouth Wukong now truth is you can Can Xbox Series S Handle Black Myth: Wukong get a pretty decent experience relatively speaking with this game even on something like an assus Rog Ally but we've also seen with the PlayStation 5 version that game science is prioritizing visual settings and may be reticent to push them down that far I'm simulating series S-Class performance here with the Radeon RX 5500 XT now compared compared to a series s we're talking about 22 compute units versus Series S at 20 so I'm achieving a similar four Tera flops of GPU compute on the PC here by dropping clocks down to 1420 MHz yeah even at 30 FPS and upscaling from 720p to 1080p as I did with my own take on PS5 performance mode on the RX 6700 it's just too much we can't achieve a locked 30 FPS dropping down to medium settings is needed and even then relative to My Chosen 30fps setup on the RX 6700 performance is still weaker overall now to be clear I do think that BMW will work on Xbox series s but there are two challenges here first of all game science may need to cut deeper into Fidelity and resolution than they may like and certainly than we may like secondly even though we can simulate relative GPU compute with the 5500 XT we can't simulate the overall lack of memory that Xbox series s has so let's just say that once again I'm going to be very interested to see how this game is adapted to Series S series X I wouldn't expect game science to have any more problems than they've had with PlayStation 5 hopefully when the series X version does come out they would have made adjustments to the various modes here anyway hope you enjoyed this content like subscribe share if you did and ring bells for notification ations that may or may not happen DF supporter program though it opens the door to our download portal which unlike YouTube actually does a good job of capturing the intense detail level of games like this plus you get early access to DF weekly use updates from the team and much much more on the premium tiers that's all for 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