---
title: 'DF Direct Weekly #268: Ocarina of Time Remake, Nintendo Direct, Fable Gameplay, RTX 3060 Returns'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=wvWlvuKhSbM'
video_id: 'wvWlvuKhSbM'
date: 2026-06-15
duration_sec: 0
---

# DF Direct Weekly #268: Ocarina of Time Remake, Nintendo Direct, Fable Gameplay, RTX 3060 Returns

> Source: [DF Direct Weekly #268: Ocarina of Time Remake, Nintendo Direct, Fable Gameplay, RTX 3060 Returns](https://youtube.com/watch?v=wvWlvuKhSbM)

## Summary

The 268th DF Direct Weekly covers the Nintendo Direct, highlighting the Ocarina of Time remake reveal, Xenoblade Chronicles updates, and third-party ports. The panel also discusses Fable gameplay, the return of the RTX 3060, and the EU's replaceable battery legislation for Switch 2.

### Key Points

- **Nintendo Direct Disappointment** [03:37] — The Direct was met with disappointment due to lack of major surprises; Ocarina of Time remake was heavily rumored and shown with only 15 seconds of gameplay.
- **Ocarina of Time Remake Analysis** [04:02] — The remake appears to run at 60fps, 1440p, with no TAA or DLSS, suggesting internal development. It's stylized but not cel-shaded, and the brief footage shows Link sleeping.
- **Xenoblade Chronicles Genesis** [11:02] — Xenoblade Chronicles Genesis looks visually impressive with clean cell-shading and 1440p/30fps. Switch 2 editions of Xenoblade 1-3 are also coming, with Xenoblade 1 running at 720p upsampled via DLSS to 60fps.
- **Star Fox Gameplay Demo** [15:19] — A playable demo is available; cutscenes run at 1080p/30fps with temporal upscaling, while gameplay is 1080p/60fps with post-AA. The game uses Villain Studios' Viper engine.
- **Kingdom Hearts 4 on Switch 2** [19:13] — Kingdom Hearts 4 targets 60fps on Switch 2 but shows low resolution and reconstruction artifacts. Kingdom Hearts 1-3 are getting native ports, replacing the cloud versions.
- **Dragon's Dogma 2 Dark Arisen** [24:17] — Capcom's port shows uncapped framerate with drops, possibly using frame gen. The game has been updated to run better on Switch 2.
- **Rise of the Tomb Raider Port Issues** [33:01] — The Switch 2 port by Aspire lacks motion blur, has missing shadows and objects, and is inferior to the PS4 version. Runs at 30fps without DLSS.
- **Fable Gameplay Deep Dive** [37:16] — 30 minutes of gameplay show a return to the original Fable's vision with open-world, life management, and moral choices. Runs at 30fps with attractive lighting and character models.
- **Switch 2 Replaceable Battery** [44:23] — EU legislation will require easily replaceable batteries in Switch 2, Joy-Cons, and Pro Controller. This improves longevity and right-to-repair.
- **RTX 3060 Returns** [52:15] — Nvidia is re-releasing the RTX 3060 12GB model via Manly and other partners. It remains viable for modern games due to 12GB VRAM and DLSS support.
- **FSR1 Five Years Later** [65:38] — FSR1 is still widely used by Nintendo and Capcom despite being a basic spatial upscaler. FSR4 has closed the gap with DLSS, but FSR1 persists in many titles.

### Conclusion

The Nintendo Direct was underwhelming with few surprises, but the Ocarina of Time remake and Xenoblade titles offer promise. Third-party ports show mixed performance, while Fable's gameplay impresses. The return of the RTX 3060 and EU battery legislation are positive hardware developments.

## Transcript

Hello there and a warm welcome of a sort
to this the 268th
edition of DF Direct Weekly. Kind of
feels like we've done 268 in the last
two weeks based on the amount of events
we've had to cover, but here we are uh
back to the regularly numbered direct
but we are going to kick off by looking
at Nintendo Direct. Um and joining me on
the panel as usual now since Alex is
still out still recovering John Linman.
Hello.
>> Hey Rich. Yeah, I I miss Alex a lot. I
don't know if he'll hear this, but uh
>> he's a great dude and uh it's been empty
without him, but I'm glad to have you
guys here with me today because there is
a lot to talk about.
>> Absolutely. And uh hello Oliver
McKenzie.
>> Yes. I also miss Alex and I also miss
the days when we weren't doing five or
six a week, but I think that's going to
be over rather soon. I I expect.
>> Yeah. Uh uh but before we kick off,
first of all, I want to give a shout out
to the amazing work that Will Jud is
doing over at digitalfoundry.net, our
website. If you're part of the supporter
program, you'll get that completely
adree just like our video downloads. Um
lots of interesting stories happening
there. ARM showing off its neural
rendering suite on mobile, which is
really really interesting stuff. Uh
we'll actually check spoke to uh the
developers about that. Do uh check that
out on the site. NextG GPU rumor
roundup. What's coming from uh Nvidia,
AMD, and Intel, or what we think is
happening based on rumors, and there's
been a lot of them happening in the in
the uh a follow-up to Computex there. Uh
Will reviewed a $90 8K Pro controller.
That's kind of like 8K refresh rate
polling rate. I suspect it's for a
display resolution. $90. but he reckons
it's worth twi uh it's as good as
alternatives that are twice the cost.
And apparently we did indeed have our
first showing or or um reveal of Intel's
Z990 motherboard at Copyex. Now there's
a lot of great stuff hopefully happening
with Intel with its next generation CPU.
So that's worth checking out as well. Um
but that's all from us on that
particular front. There's plenty of
other stuff to check out there as well.
Uh, I guess we should just crack on with
our first news story. But first, this DF
Direct Weekly is brought to you in
partnership with Alienware. The latest
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built for the absolute limit of modern
PC gaming.
Okay, so let's do it. Let's talk about
Nintendo Direct, the last big event of
the summer showcase season. Um, I think
there was a general level of
disappointment um based on what was
actually shown there. And uh there was
one big game that we were really looking
forward to seeing but barely saw
anything of. Um Oliver, you decided to
take it upon yourself to choose the
highlights of the show. And I guess we
should start with Ocarina of Time,
right?
>> Yeah. Ocarina of Time. Interesting
showing. I think the disappointment here
that John or rather that Rich was
mentioning is lies in the fact that this
game is a title that was kind of heavily
rumored. It's not really a big surprise
and a leaker Nate the Hate was talking
about this some months ago and it's been
basically accepted wisdom that this game
would come out at some point in the near
future. And despite all that, Nintendo
was revealing it with kind of all the
panache of a developer, a publisher that
was revealing a game for the first time
when we already knew about this title.
So, they really didn't show us too much
here, unfortunately. Um, really just a
couple seconds if I count it out now. We
have like 15 seconds of what appears to
be in-game real-time rendered footage
and then a brief interstitial showing
like a tapestry before then. So, nothing
too exciting here. Um, but what they did
show looks good. You know, I I saw a lot
of people remark that Nintendo hired
this man. And perhaps that's not quite
fair. I think this does look quite
attractive. Um, in this limited chunk of
footage, we see Link sleeping, kind of
like the beginning of the game, although
there are some indications that maybe
they've mixed things up a little bit
just with uh respect to symbolism here,
but he's sleeping. Uh, he's not
cell-shaded, but he's obviously quite
stylized. No TAA, no DLSS, which makes
me think this might be an internal
internally developed title because
that's kind of like the visual signature
of Nintendo so far this generation. It's
running at 60 fps. appears to be 1440p
in this footage based on some pixel
counts or maybe about 1440p, maybe
slightly higher than 1440p. Um quite an
easy count actually uh with no AA or
very limited post AA or something like
that. Um quite pleasing, but I really
want to see more. Like that's the big
takeaway here. I really don't know where
they would go with the remake. Would
they make it open world, god forbid?
Would they remix things? would they
basically just deliver a visual remake
of the title in line with some other
efforts that we've seen from other
developers where they really don't touch
the original gameplay kind of like The
Last of Us Part One,
>> right?
>> Um it's not quite clear. If it's
Nintendo internal, I kind of suspect
maybe they'd make more changes. If it's
external, I would expect them to make
fewer changes. But um yeah, very curious
to see where this one goes, but I really
want to see more footage. And it feels
really weird cuz they're announcing the
title for 2026. There's only 6 months
left in 2026, but they're not announcing
a date or showing any gameplay or
anything like that. like it just seems
like a weird way to announce the title.
>> Interesting. We've actually got this
supporter question which raises many
similar questions. Um, Spotlude uh asks,
"Hello, DF Crew. I'm intrigued to hear
your predictions for OOT. Do you think
it will be a pretty standard remake like
Grezo did on the 3DS or more of a
reimagining? Nintendo tend to not change
the Formula X. The return of Woohoo
Island and the countless remakes of Star
Fox prove this, don't they? Do they,
John?
So, that is an interesting point because
by and large when Nintendo does remake
games, they tend to stay pretty true to
the original formula.
But I feel like in the case of Ocarina
of Time, they if if they were to just
stick with the original game design as
it is or as we saw in the 3DS version,
we would end up with a situation
similar to and possibly even more
egregious than uh Metal Gear Solid 3
Delta, which I don't dislike Delta, but
there's this weird disconnect with it
where like all the underlying animation,
gameplay, map design, everything about
it is is the PS2 game, but then they've
stuck this like super high-end visual
presentation on top of it. And it's not
bad, but it makes it feel weird to me. I
never quite like that. And, you know,
keeping an older engine running beneath
the surface is not necessarily something
that's an issue. Like Shadow of the
Colossus and Demon Souls from Bluepoint,
those games had enough like pizzazz in
the general movement and design that it
actually worked. But I don't think it
would work here. And since they've
already done the 3DS version of Ocarina
of Time, I feel like it needs to be
something a little bit more robust. And
I don't think we really have a good
blueprint for what that looks like under
Nintendo, right? Can you guys think of
anything that they've done where they've
remade a game and it's significantly
different from an original? I mean, the
closest thing that I can think of off
the top of my head that they published
but didn't develop was Silicon Knights
uh Metal Gear Solid the Twin Snakes,
which was indeed quite different from
the original in many many ways. Um, but
that's not really a Nintendo game in in
the truest sense. So, I'm not really
sure
if there is an example of this.
>> Um, nothing springs to mind. I don't
know what you think, Oliver.
>> No, nothing really springs to mind at
the moment. I mean, there are some
titles that have been upgraded
enormously visually, like Link's
Awakening would be one, right, that we
saw in 2019. Um, but I'm not really
sure. I mean, and Nintendo tends to add
when they do go back to older titles,
they tend to add more convenience
features, right? It's like when we saw
the um Ocarine of Time 3D remake back in
2011, they added like some hint system
to the game to smooth your experience of
the title if you wanted to go back to
the the home and see some hints for how
you might progress. But in general, they
don't really mess too much with things.
The only thing that I would think is
maybe pushing me in that direction is I
think some people who are more in tune
with the series than I am have pointed
out some um possible inongruities with
this sequence and a similar sequence the
Nintendo 64 game in the Awaren Time
remake as well. Um that suggest maybe
they're messing up the timeline a little
bit with this title. Um, but also if it
is a Nintendo first-p partyy title,
which we have a scan evidence to
suggest, but perhaps it is, then maybe
they would feel a little bit more
freedom to go back and actually change
things. Um, I'm not quite sure.
>> Interesting. Um, well, famously, I've
never played this game. Uh, it launched
in a period where I just wasn't a part
of Nintendo whatsoever, and I never kind
of circled back to it. I was just
looking at some footage now and
obviously it's a game of its era and I
suspect that just producing the kind of
visuals that were hinted at in this uh
I'm not even going to call it a trailer
because it wasn't really was it? Um I
think it's just going to be a full
visual revamp and what more do you kind
of want from that? I mean wasn't the
original like 20 frames per second as
well with very very basic um judged by
today's standards graphics. So I think
that would kind kind of be enough. I
mean, um, what I don't know about it is
certainly made up for by the fact that
people absolutely love it, the people
that have played it. So, I'm not really
sure there's much to be gained from
going beyond that. Maybe some sort of
flourishes and and stuff like that. I
don't know. I mean, this is the the big
tease, right? Obviously, if it is indeed
going to be coming 2026, we're going to
be finding out more about it quite soon.
Um, should we move on? Should we talk
about Xenolade because we saw um new
releases there, Oliver?
>> Yeah. Yes. There are a variety of titles
in the mix here. Probably the first and
most exciting of these. Jeez, I guess
it's four games that we're talking about
in Xenolade Saga is Xenolade Genesis,
which I think looks very good. I love
the character models. It's very clean
and pleasing with good cell shading on
the character models, and the
environments as well look quite good. I
think they have very striking lighting
like in that kind of interior sequence
that we see here in the school or
cathedral or whatever it is. Um
definitely looks a cut above the other
Xenolade titles and doesn't exhibit some
of the u more worrying kind of like
texture tiling and things like that
we've seen in the other Xenolade titles
necessarily. Looks quite clean. Looks
quite good. Very pleasing open world
title. Um some aliasing here there. It
kind of looks a little bit like the Elus
light almost to me because the way that
it has very clean edges in stationary
shots, but in motion it's a bit more
compromised. I did count out one shot
and it's 1440p roughly speaking. Um
counted a couple edges on one shot. So
appears to be a 1440p 30 title which is
no great surprise. In terms of the
Xenolade Chronicles Switch 2 editions,
those are the other titles we're talking
about. So basically they're going back
and issuing Switch 2 editions for
Xenolade Chronicles 1, 2, and three. all
those titles that originally appeared on
Switch. Xenolade Chronicles one was a
Wii title, a 3DS title, and then a
Switch title with a number of graphical
enhancements. And um that's actually a
title that I took a look at because they
released that game. That's the first the
three titles they were they're releasing
here. And it actually looks quite good.
It's very clean, crisp, pleasing, nice
to look at. Not at all like a Xenolade
Chronicles X, which as I'm sure John can
remark, looked very ugly and upscaled
and super messy. Um, I actually counted
it out at 720p internally for Xenolade
Chronicles one. So, it is being
upsampled presumably with something like
DLSS, which there is some evidence of on
the edge artifacts that we see here. Um,
so I'm quite pleased by this game and
yeah, it's definitely nice to see a good
60fps update of a Xenolade Chronicles
title that isn't compromised massively
in terms of image quality. So yeah,
across the board, I think Monolith Soft
delivers some of the best uh Switch
experiences in terms of their technical
output. And these titles look to be
reclaiming that crown after kind of
slipping a bit with Xenolade Chronicles
X, which was kind of a messy title on
Switch 2, I would say.
>> Uh yeah, I mean reclaiming their
reputation a bit. I mean, it's it's a
world of difference to my eyes based on
what we saw from the prior game. John,
thoughts? Yeah. Now, this is um one of
the few games here at the Direct that
actually was exciting. I do like
Xenolade Chronicles,
and I do think this new one, Genesis,
looks quite excellent. I like the visual
design. I'm a big fan of that sort of
curved world design, right? It's
similar, I guess, in concept to Halo or
like the this the the world from Zone of
the Enders where, you know, it's just
like you traverse it, but you're like
moving along it in a way as if it if it
as it rises up against the horizon.
>> And I hope that there's a way to
actually seamlessly traverse the world
in that sense, right? Rather than
dividing it up into like different
loading districts, which we don't yet
know how it's going to play out. But I
also like character designs. The
animation with the terrain is better. I
think Xenolade 1 and two always I never
liked the way the games looked in motion
because I especially with Shaw, he's
basically got Kingdom Hearts shoes on.
It's the way I always looked at it. Like
big floppy feet and it just looks dumb
running around the world. It never felt
good to me.
>> And I actually think getting that run
cycle down is something that helps make
a game feel good just to pick up and
play. And it they've definitely
improved. Xenolade Chronicles 3 was
already a step up in that direction. So,
uh, the upgrades I haven't really looked
closely. Somebody did mention to me
though that Xenolade 1 has some weird
performance hiccups.
>> Uh, did you see anything, Oliver? Uh, I
saw it drop frames a few times. I was
really just in the initial area,
honestly. I tested it out for like 15
minutes just to see how it was. So, in
terms of image quality, I think it looks
quite attractive. In terms of
performance, that's harder to judge
without like later game content, I would
expect.
Okay. Well, so yeah, I mean that's
that's good stuff. I'm excited for those
games for sure.
>> Okay, Oliver. So, um Star Fox was part
of the presentation there. There is
actually a playable demo out now. Um
you've taken a quick look at it, right?
>> Yeah, just a quick look. Obviously, we
have uh this game is coming in pretty
soon. I think it's a June 25th release
date if I'm not mistaken. If my memory
isn't failing me too badly here, but
yeah, it's very pleasing. And it's a lot
of the same content we've seen in prior
Nintendo showings of this title in the
direct, but I think it looks awesome.
The cut scenes look terrific. The
gameplay looks great. Um, I was able to
do a little bit more pixel counting with
this title just to get some preliminary
counts in the mix here. And in cut
scenes, it is counting at 1080p. Um,
which is kind of to be expected. That's
kind of where I think we had counted the
game earlier in gameplay. And the
gameplay also counts at 1080p in my
accounts. But interestingly, there is
this divide between the cut scenes,
which seem to be using some temporal
image treatment, possibly DLSS or
something, look very clean, very crisp,
but 30 fps, and then the gameplay, which
is 60 fps, but seems to be going along
with more of that kind of Nintendo
styling of not actually using uh much
image treatment, if if any at all. It
seems to maybe using I think it's using
a post AA is my guess, based off of the
image quality characteristics that we do
see in these sequences. Beyond that, um,
looks quite pleasing. I wish we saw a
more, uh, lengthy demo perhaps because
this is a very brief snippet of
gameplay, unfortunately, without too
much, um, too much in the way of like I
would have loved to see some segments on
Corneria, right? Some of the uh, early
missions there. We just get like the
sequence in the meteoride field, which
is not that great. And then also, I
think perhaps more interesting to us
than any of those like preliminary
technical details is the fact that this
title has been confirmed to be using an
external developer, Villain Studios.
They also developed uh Knockout City,
which was that kind of like I think it's
now discontinued, but that kind of um
MMO style title. U Mario Kart Live Home
Circuit as well, another Nintendo title.
Um Hot Wheels Rift Rally, a number of
other games. And they're using their own
internal game engine which is called
Viper. Um, which is pretty cool. So,
this is I guess we're kind of right in
part in the sense that it is using
proprietary technology, but wrong in the
sense that it's not a Nintendo developed
title, which I think we're kind of
looking forward to because this game
does exhibit some characteristics that
would make it pretty tantalizing
technologically for other Nintendo
developed titles down the road, right?
But it turns out this is internal
technology at Villain. It's not a uh
internal Nintendo title or Nintendo
internal uh first-party engine.
>> Okay. So, um John, you're very keen to
review this. What do you want from this
game?
>> Well, we know that it is a
straightforward remake, but I guess the
most interesting thing to me is just the
way they expand the story stuff outward
cuz I, you know, getting a little bit
more of that in there. The original game
did not have like proper cutscenes in
the same sense outside of a couple
little segments. So, I like that
addition. Um, and this it's just one of
those classic games. It's fun to revisit
many times over. So, and it is designed
to be replayed multiple times cuz a
single playthrough is pretty short, I
would say, which is fine. Um, it's like
a Panzer Dragoon game in that regard,
>> right?
>> Uh, but but there's many different paths
and secrets and all kinds of stuff to
find. And so, I'm really I'm just in it
for the additional story stuff and the
presentation, the visuals. And it's cool
to learn that it is like their own
internal engine because of everything
that Nintendo first party has released
on the console. It's one of the best
looking things we've seen yet by far.
>> Mhm.
>> I would say.
>> Mhm.
>> It feels technically impressive to me.
>> Mhm. Good stuff. Well, can I have a
review on that soon hopefully? Oliver,
let's let's return to your selected
highlights. Kingdom Hearts. Lots of
Kingdom Hearts.
>> Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts. So
perhaps the standout here is our first
gameplay of Kingdom Hearts 4, which was
announced a number of years ago.
Obviously, the Kingdom Hearts franchise
longunning. Kingdom Hearts 3, I think,
came out in 2019, if I'm not mistaken,
maybe 2018. This title has been long in
incubation since then, but I think it
looks pretty good here. They appear to
be targeting a 60fps target on Switch 2,
um, which is quite good. There's some I
didn't get a pixel count on this, but it
seems quite clearly low resolution.
Maybe some reconstruction artifacts in
the mix, some messy looking SSR, things
like that. But 60 fps on Switch 2 for a
current generation title. Pretty cool.
Um, some of the city environments do
look a little bit bare. I wonder if that
might be touched up a little bit on some
of the bigger consoles in terms of their
lighting presentation or asset detail or
anything like that, but the cut scenes
look quite terrific here. So, some good
signs there for Kingdom Hearts 4. They
are also releasing Kingdom Hearts 1 to 3
on Switch 2, which I'm glad those are
getting a Switch 2 port. And the first
two titles are coming to Switch One as
well. Um, if you might recall, there was
a Kingdom Hearts 1 to3 cloud edition for
Switch One, which released some years
ago, but that did not include any
obviously native rendering on device
itself. It was all in the cloud. And I
don't know, it's kind of bittersweet cuz
I'm glad that they're coming back and
reintroducing those title those titles
running natively on Switch One and
Switch 2. That's terrific. But they're
discontinuing the uh Switch One edition,
the Switch One clouded edition, which
is, you know, maybe fine, but they're
also pulling the server support for
those titles in 2027. So, it really does
indicate when you buy these cloud
editions on Switch or Switch 2 or
whatever, you really don't know what
you're getting into, right? And in some
cases, they can pull support for those
games sooner than expected. I think
having support for those titles for only
one year past the d-listing date I think
is probably not a reasonable way to go
here.
>> No, that's kind of crazy. On the one
hand, I'm kind of glad it's going
because whenever we've tested it, it's
just been awful. I can't believe that it
was sustainable. On the other hand, if
people have bought it, they deserve
something for their time, for their
money, basically. Um, John Kingdom
Hearts. So, actually, weirdly, one of
the one of the things about this that
caught my attention is like the
technical presentation of the Direct.
Uh, if you actually watch the Direct as
they showed it, uh, it was broadcast at
60 frames per second and there was 60
fps content in there. And in fact, the
logo for Kingdom Hearts 4, which is part
of the video, is 60 frames per second.
But guess what? The gameplay and
everything shown in that version of the
trailer is all 30. Yet, you guys were
saying like, "Oh, no. It looks like 60,
but that's only in the dedicated Kingdom
Hearts 4 trailer. So, I was like, wait,
did they mess it up? Like, clearly they
delivered a 60 fps asset because the
logo for the game is 60, right? So, it's
not like they uploaded a 30 fps trailer,
but why the difference? Is it other
console footage? Like, what's going on?
Like I really don't know cuz on
Nintendo's official website or YouTube
channel, they have the 60fps version of
the of the game trailer. So
>> really baffling to me. And it's funny
that they would show it at 60 because
from what I've seen, Kingdom Hearts 3 on
Switch absolutely does not run at 60.
It's quite bad. Uh, so, um, I would
genuinely be shocked if they were able
to get Kingdom Hearts 4 running at a
stable 60 on Switch 2 when when Kingdom
Hearts 3 can't even do that. You know
what I mean?
>> Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because
now I'm going I'm pressing the uh the
frame by frame buttons on the YouTube
trailer and it looks like the the the
standalone trailer, the initial
cinematic is 30
>> and then and then it swaps to 60.
>> Um, that's that's kind of weird, isn't
it?
It's extremely weird. I I don't know. I
don't know what's up with it, but
>> it definitely does look like plausibly
rough and aliased and it has issues, but
I would concur with John that I would be
a little surprised to see a title like
this hit 60 fps on Switch 2, unless it's
been architected from the ground up to
be a 60 fp Unreal Engine 5 and it's
using
>> those types of features. And I just
don't believe that they're going to so
easily
>> Well, we don't we don't know what
features they're using yet, right? But I
I otherwise. Yeah,
>> we need we would need to look. I do see
SSR it looks like. So, it could just be
that. And who knows about the lighting.
>> So, we'll see. Like maybe they'll
surprise us. And that actually brings us
to this uh the third party aspect of
this show actually. And that as somebody
that owns all platforms, uh it was a bit
unexiting for me, but I I can see why
some folks would be excited. Like they
basically showed eight games that
already exist on other platforms and are
getting ports and then six six games
that are upcoming that are going to be
on other platforms as well. But hey, it
does show third party support. But the
one that stood out actually was Dragon's
Dogma 2 Dark Arisen.
>> Not only because it's like the Dark
Arisen version, but when we first
started talking about Switch 2, we
admittedly underestimated that it could
actually handle this game. And I
maintain that the original Dragon's
Dogma 2 that was released probably would
not run well on Switch 2, but Capcom has
continued to update and improve the
game. And I can see that they've
obviously made changes then that allow
them to now target Switch 2 as well. And
that's cool to see. Um, the thing is is
like the original Dogma 2 was really not
wellreceived, especially in Japan.
People were really bummed out by it. So,
and it was the same actually with
Monster Hunter Wild. So, like Capcom's
mostly had hits this gen, but these two
games fell short, but this is their
chance to sort of redeem themselves. And
I think that may indeed be possible. I
hope so. I'd like to see it cuz
conceptually there's a lot still a lot
of good stuff going on. And, you know,
the the update of the original Dragons
Dogma also arguably got better. So,
we've been here before,
>> but yeah, I'm happy to see that. in
other re engine games. Of course, Oni
Musha was announced for the Switch 2.
And now I'm skeptical because that was
also shown running at 30 FPS in the
Direct trailer, but could it actually be
60?
>> Like I don't know. Like now I don't know
if I trust what the Direct is showing
us. You know what I mean?
>> Oh no.
>> Um I would like to direct your attention
to the 24 mark in the dark in the
Dragons Dogma 2 Dark Arisen uh trailer,
the standalone trailer. Okay.
>> And uh again, move frame by frame. And
it's it's 60 frames pers, but it really
does look like fame gen. Sorry.
>> I I suspect this title is unlocked,
right? Cuz it is it is 60 fps in some
portions and like 40 to
>> Oh, you're right. No, I Okay, so look at
this. You're right. The discoveries
continue, Rich. I brought up the
official one on the Nintendo UK channel
and sure enough, it is like an uncapped
frame rate. I can just see by eye
whereas the direct itself. So, let me
let me go to Oni Musha uh for Switch 2
trailer. We're doing this live, folks,
because this is this is a discovery. All
right, so here it is. Nintendo of
America Way of the Sword, just the
Onimusha trailer. What do we got?
Okay, that trailer is still presenting
at 30. It's a 4K 60 upload, but that's
30. So that actually might just be 30
fps which would be interesting cuz they
don't usually cap their games,
>> right?
>> But now like we've opened up this can of
worms guys where like you look at this
direct and it's like you know they
showed Stellar Blade for instance that's
coming to Switch. I love Stellar Blade
but that was shown at 30 fps. So now
it's like wait I need to go check out
the trailer. Well actually no that looks
uncapped on the direct. My bad. Is it
was uncapped when I looked at it. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> So So that one's actually that one's
actually correct. It's just uncapped and
>> I think it's just Kingdom Hearts. That's
a possibly a problem there. But I
>> Kingdom Hearts and Dark Risen because
Dragon's Dawn also doesn't
>> Was it 30 FPS in the direct only?
>> Yes.
>> Oh, okay. Yeah,
>> it looks choppier to me.
>> Um, yeah, I would I would also I' I'd
certainly echo John's thoughts there,
but but I'd have a concern overall here
with like I am happy they're bringing
Dragon Sign to Switch. I'm less happy
that it seems to have a very
inconsistent performance level that's
like all over the place in line with
other Capcom pedals. But yeah, what do
you expect? Well, in this case, it seems
to have some sequences that are like sub
30 fps and some that are hitting 60 fps.
That's not too
>> Actually, you're right. This this might
be okay in the direct. It might just be
Kingdom Hearts 4. I'm looking at it
again. It's just it's just the
performance is so unstable.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's
>> there's also like um like other titles
here that I saw that were a little bit
unconvincing. Final Fantasy 14 appeared
to exhibit some performance issues at
times in the footage they did show off
which was not too promising.
>> Mark Triforce Detlesson who covered FF14
also noted that it looked and ran very
bad in that video. So that's not
promising. And he is our resident uh
Final Fantasy 14 expert.
>> Right. And then also Metaphor Refantasia
was shown in this foot in this uh set of
trailers here. and it appears to be an
unlocked frame rate kind of like PS5 is
but at 1080p resolution it appears to be
um and it looks very very rough. So in
general like I'm I'm very happy that
Switch 2 is seeing a lot of third party
support but in terms of the actual games
that are being brought over I'm seeing a
lot of really inconsistent unpleasant
performance trends possibly with this
these titles. Again this is purely
software so you don't want to judge too
much but like you look at a title like
Space Marine 2 and it's like did we
really need that on Switch 2? I'm not so
sure, especially when performance is
going to be maybe not the best in these
games. And with Capcom, they have a
unique issue, which is this unlocking of
frame rates, which I'd love to see
addressed in some form. It's not great
in a title like Pragmata, which is like
60 fps sometimes, but mostly 40 to 50
FPS, but with a title like Dragon
Stockman 2, which is much more CPU
starved, I suspect it's going to be a
much bleaker output there without a 30
fps lock. So yeah, I just want to
clarify there is a weird shot in that
Dragon's Dogmouth trailer where
something is happening there that
doesn't look right, but the rest of it
does look just standard unlock frame
rate. Um, John,
>> I was going to say uh I do think Oliver
stuff like Space Marine 2 is like just
interesting from a technical standpoint.
>> Sure.
>> And that's I I thought about this a
little bit. So, like what makes a port
like that interesting or not to me and
maybe our audience kind of comes down to
the technology behind it. If it's just
another Unreal game, for instance, you
can kind of presume it's just going to
be lowering the usual settings in the
specific way that they do and will have
performance that's likely not going to
be great. And that's, I think, kind of
boring. But Space Marine 2, I believe
that's their own in-house technology
still. It is not Unreal. and that game
is doing some pretty cool and different
stuff. So, in that case, personally, I
would find that very interesting because
then we get to see how they adapt that
engine to something like the Switch 2.
And so, that's kind of where my line is
is like, are they doing something
interesting with a port? Yes or no. Is
it a different engine than something
like Unreal? Yes or no? That's kind of
what determines. But, I will say, you
know, it's good for Switch 2, especially
at this point with the cost of all the
hardware being what it is. Uh, if you
only have a Switch 2 for instance, then
yeah, it's great to have these
thirdparty games on it.
>> Interesting. Space Marine 2. I didn't
know about that one, but man, that is
super CPU heavy. So, I'm going to be
very to see what they're doing on that
one.
>> Of course, the biggest announcement,
Rich, was mina
Minecraft.
>> Okay.
>> It showed they had a segment on freaking
Minecraft for some reason, and it wasn't
even running smoothly. So, I'm
completely baffled by that.
Okay.
>> I mean, like, why? It's like whatever.
>> But there was other good stuff in there.
I mean, they showed a little more of the
Dusk Bloods, which is that From Software
game that's sort of Bloodborne adjacent
uh aesthetically.
>> So, that's that's looking good, I would
say. Uh we've got Thumb Wrestling in
Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and we
were given a nice two or three minute
demonstration of that. So, if you really
like thumb wrestling, Rich, and
skateboarding on grass, that game's got
you covered. Um, Mura Masa is coming
back, which is cool. But that's also
coming to PC, but that's um that was
originally a Switch game or sorry, a Wii
game
>> that then was ported to the VA and now
we're getting a new version on multiple
platforms, including the Switch 2.
>> So, and then Hello Kitty Party Land.
>> Okay. I think Tom was particularly
excited by that one for some reason.
>> Yeah, he he that was the thing he posted
the most about in the Slack channel, so
expect coverage from Tom.
>> Um, sorry. Go ahead.
>> The last thing I I I noticed, um, they
actually are bringing Devil May Cry 5 to
the Switch, too.
>> Yeah, that's cool.
>> I love Devil May Cry 5. So, that's
that's interesting that they've It's
Capcom mining the back catalog again,
right? And hey, why not? Yeah. Yeah. I'm
still waiting for the control port for
Switch to I mean, it's got to happen.
>> You think it'll happen, right?
>> Well, you can play it on an iPhone with
with raid tracing.
>> Oh, that's a good point. Yeah,
>> shortly. I I'm surprised we haven't seen
it yet. Um, so Oliver, um, we had Rise
of the Tomb Raider Shadow Dropping after
the event. It's playable. You can buy it
now. Should we?
>> Uh, well, that's that's the question of
the hour. Um, I did to test it, I guess.
So, that's uh not but it's I don't it's
not a vote of confidence on my part
because I I was concerned about this
port because Aspire is the studio
handling this one. They also did the
Tomb Raider 2013 port to switch to a few
months ago which was very compromised.
Had some concessions even relative to
the PS3 and 360 versions. Not a very
good title. And uh here I would say this
is better, but it still has compromises
that are like totally bizarre. So you're
missing some visual features relative to
PS4. So there's no motion blur for
instance, right? No motion blur
whatsoever in the game. Um there's no
shadowing in some instances, like for
instance in this cut scene, like all the
small details in the wall behind Delara
are unshadowed, like the pins. And in
this shot, all the distant shadows for
foliage are missing. So, it looks very
flat and ugly and not very pleasing.
Lacks depth, I would say. And then in
that cut scene earlier, there also some
miss missing objects like part of the
building in this shot, which is just
totally gone, and then the beams in this
shot. So, it seems like they're missing
like they're just porting these games
over and missing a lot of the uh visual
minutia of what make them look so good
on current generation platforms. At
least like the the hair is similar. Um,
the lighting overall is similar, but
there are these weird cuts here and
there that don't feel totally
intentional. I'm not totally sure what
their porting process was, but it does
not seem like it was uh rigorous enough
perhaps. Um, frame rates are okay. It
seems to be doing a good enough job at
30 fps. There's no DLSS here. Seems to
be a pretty similar image treatment to
the PS4 version of the game, but yeah,
it's inferior to PS4 in a few key ways.
And the overall vis visual presentation
looks fine, but it's really unfortunate
to look at these ports and say, "Well,
it's actually missing some key visual
stuff relative to that PS4 version." Not
really where you want to be with a
Switch 2 version of a game.
>> John, Rise of the Tomb Raider was a a
benchmark game for Digital Foundry back
in the day. I mean, God knows how many
times you covered it. Here it is again.
>> I Exactly. I mean, I I don't have too
much to say, but this is possibly one of
the games I've covered the most on
Digital Foundry. And it always felt like
just when we thought we were done, a new
version would come out. Yeah.
>> And after the last version, I thought
for sure that it was over. We were not
going to be revisiting this game again.
But here we are. It's 2026 and there's a
new version of Rise of the Tomb Raider.
I do want to check it out just out of
morbid curiosity at this point. But the
thing that really gets me and what I I
cannot stop laughing over is it's called
Rise of the Tomb Raider 20ear
celebration,
>> right?
>> Like do I I know now where that comes
from. But do you know why? Like when you
when you look at the title, you're
thinking like, okay, what like what what
are they celebrating?
>> Well,
>> what would you think? What would you
guess Rich?
>> What happened in 2006 then? Tell me.
Well, so at first I was like, wait, 2006
is the first Crystal Dynamics Tomb
Raider, so maybe that's what they're
celebrating. But it turns out 20 years
Celebration was the subtitle for the PS4
version released in 2016, I think, which
was celebrating the 20 20 years of Tomb
Raider. And I think because it's a port
of that version, they just left 20 years
celebration on the title despite the
fact that it's no longer relevant to
what it was originally celebrating. So I
guess theoretically they could be
celebrating Crystal Dynamics releasing a
Tomb Raider game, but I really don't
think that's what they're doing. I I
think this is just they just left the
title alone rather than change it to
like 30-year celebration. Yeah, they're
they're well they're trying to indicate
parody feature parody with the 20-year
celebration version which has like some
new features, co-op things like that. So
I think it's just to indicate that's the
version of the game you're getting.
>> It's pretty dumb though.
>> It should be 30ear celebration. I agree.
But
>> wow.
>> Oh man, I love it.
>> Okay. Uh well that was the last event of
the summer showcases in 2026. Although
we said that after Xbox and then more
came along so who knows at this point
but let's move on. Um so after the Xbox
showcase uh we saw earlier. Um we
actually now have 30 minutes of gameplay
from Fable and uh certainly interesting
stuff and certainly very different to
the presentation we we saw at the
showcase which looked like some sort of
amazing sort of action adventure. This
is kind of like classic Fable, right
John?
>> It is and it isn't. So, what I like here
is that it does seem to be more than I
expected building on the promises of the
original Fable uh on technology that can
now support that vision. So, if you go
back to the original game, uh Peter
Molly knew as usual was promising the
world and that was one of his most
egregious examples. Um and it made it
sound like a game where you could do
anything and it was just like this wide
open thing of freedom. For me, this
Fable released not that long after I
first experienced the glory of uh The
Elder Scrolls Marowind.
And I had this vision of like, wow,
Fable's going to be like Marowind but
with like all this extra stuff you can
do. And then it turned out it was just a
bunch of loading screens and like every
area in Fable was broken up into tiny
little segments.
>> Yeah.
>> Which was crushingly disappointing at
the time and I didn't love the game. The
sequels improved upon that, but they
never fulfilled that. This actually does
seem to, and this is an example where I
do think an open world actually makes
sense, but this seems to offer a lot of
the granular interactions and like life
management features that Fable kind of
attempted and was originally promising
to deliver, but it's actually doing it
at scale and with technology that can
support all of that. And so I was really
surprised and impressed with just how
much stuff is going on beneath the
surface here. And I'm very curious to
see how it all plays out because yeah,
all the trailers for this just painted
it as more of an action adventury thing
and it was unclear if they were going to
sort of retain that original vision, but
they've definitely embraced it. And so
it seems like it could be a game that
combines that sort of like those
impressive moments, but with this more
life management side of things as well.
And boy, you can become if you want to
like like just kick the whole town's ass
and become like a total criminal and a
dirt bag, they have shown in this demo
that you can still do that, which is
great. So
>> I did enjoy that. 25 minutes of
basically trying to uh uh manage the the
the town nicely and be a per a great
person to everyone and uh romance the
local shopkeeper and then at the end
they just start randomly killing people
uh after uh saving a centurion pig
pig. the pig.
>> The thing is, you know, that was the
thing, right? Because um uh those some
of those alternative choices for Colin's
fate look pretty grim,
right? Yeah. The pig dies
and I like that they're not they're not
really shying away from that stuff. It
seems like they're really embracing
this. You can go totally good or totally
evil or somewhere in between. And it is
fun to mess with that stuff and see what
happens as a result. And it really seems
feels like they are going to try to pull
it off. So that's great. And in
addition, of course, visually speaking,
I think the game looks really nice. Y
>> um it's it's a little bit more back down
to earth now that we've seen more of the
gameplay, right? But it's still like I
really love the subtle lighting in this
game and the detail levels and the
characters. Uh, I mean, I know it's a
different team with a different goal,
but I was a little worried about that
because let's be honest, Forts of
Horizon may have amazing looking cars,
but its characters are pretty awful.
>> So, Playground Grims has never
demonstrated that they're good with
character design and like rendering
characters in a game world, but this
obviously puts that to bed and they look
excellent. I think, you know, the
highlight for me was basically your your
avatar turns up in this town to
investigate weird things going on and uh
he asks the talking pig about the weird
things and the talking pig says, "Yeah,
nothing crazy going on here."
>> Oliver, what were your thoughts?
>> It's nice to have this kind of slice of
exploration and talking to villagers and
stuff like that because it does indicate
what you'll be able to do in this game
during your downtime. My kind of concern
with these systems is like how deep do
they go? Is this just a game where you
can check a lot of boxes and you can
have like this little fun social
simulation for 30 minutes or an hour and
then it becomes kind of tiresome or how
like how deep or involved do these
gameplay systems go beyond just like the
reputation system changing a few in-game
events things like that. Um I'd be
curious to see how deep it goes because
to me at least in these kinds of titles
I tend to treat them as like a kind of
completionist exercise of like I want to
do all the quests, I want to do all the
main story content. I want to complete
all the kind of uh carefully handcrafted
and iterated on uh content in the game.
I'm not really so interested in these
kinds of social dynamics in titles like
this, but this seems really cool.
Technically, this is a 30 fps showing. I
don't know whether that's representative
of console footage or exactly what it's
meaning to represent here. I'd presume
this game would have a 60 fps mode as
well. I would definitely agree with John
in that sense. I think the lighting is
quite attractive in this title and uh
I'm definitely curious to see how this
pans out when it does get released. I
think they delayed it uh apparently to
get away from Grand Theft Auto 6. I'm
not quite sure the extent to which they
need a little bit more time with this
title. I certainly wouldn't blame them
for that, but it'll be interesting to
see this game when it releases I think
in early 2027.
>> Yeah, I think it's a a wise move. If
they needed more time to do to to polish
it, absolutely fine. But I also think
that, you know, let's say they released
before or indeed after Grand Theft Auto
6, um, and Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out,
then suddenly you've you've invested
like what, six, however many years of
development into this, and the audience
are going to be very easily tempted away
to play GTA 6 instead. And um, that
would that would be pretty bad. Yeah.
Um, I I thought this looked pretty good.
I thought uh actually seeing the game in
motion um uh and actually a sort of deep
dive into how it all plays out on the
sort of micromanagement scale kind of
demonstrated to me that it's you know I
just don't have time for that kind of
level of immersion. So I'm going to be
really interested to see um just going
through the quest line how that all
plays out. But you know if people want
to sit in this world and inhabit it and
do all the things you saw in that
trailer uh that's pretty good. But that
last five minutes, I just thought,
"Yeah, that's probably going to be me."
Just causing some carage.
>> The game's very, very British, too,
which is something they've maintained
from the original. I do wish Patrick
Marber would make an appearance, who
famously was uh Peter O'Hanrahan in the
day-to-day. I I feel like he would have
been perfect in this game.
>> Okay. Um let's move on. Okay. Next news
story of the week. Well, this one
actually sort of broke a little while
earlier. There's been reports that
Nintendo is producing a new model of the
Switch 2. Now, obviously, we'd love to
see new OLED screens and stuff like
that, but this one is actually a bit
more um legally based in nature. The EU
is introducing um legislation that
basically means that um mobile devices
should have easily replaceable
batteries. And um they are going to be
producing a new version of the Switch 2
which is apparently um going to have an
easily replaceable battery. And I think
this is pretty good news um not least
for the environment but also for the
fact that it man you know um I've
watched tearown videos of the Switch 2
and to actually get to the battery is a
super super involved process. So, the
idea that you'll be able to buy a Switch
2 and then, you know, basically if the
battery starts to fade, replace it
easily, I think that's absolutely
fantastic. And there's um I think the
legislation should indeed cover the um
Joy-Cons
>> as well. Um and possibly the Pro
Controller. Um, based on what Nintendo
is saying, anything with a be product
code, a B product code, um, will have a
version for the, um, for the for the EU
which has replaceable batteries and that
would cover the JoyCons and the Pro
Controller. So, hopes are high there.
Um, this is a really good initiative,
right John?
>> Oh, it's fantastic. It's actually an
example of legislation that's genuinely
beneficial beyond just, you know, any
environmental impact. This is more about
the right to repair and allowing users
to like really own and manage their own
equipment, right? Uh these built-in
batteries, especially the ones that are
difficult to get to, it's a serious
problem because batteries do not last
forever. And when they do go, not only
is there a potential safety hazard in
some cases as far as like expanding and
exploding, right? But it also means, you
know, your product is dead until you can
find a way to replace it. And at least
in the case of Switch One, when there's
no battery or no charge to it, the
console cannot operate, right? So, you
need a working battery in there, which
is something I worried about for the
longevity of this these systems. And
it's specifically this that has kept
things like the PSP and the the DS and
even 3DS like alive long term is that
the battery is easily swappable. So you
even when that original battery has
failed and many of them have at this
point uh it's easy to replace and you're
going again and yeah some of them have
had issues with swelling especially the
PSP
>> and that may or may not happen now but
again it's replaceable so not a big deal
>> but these these modern devices man
you're absolutely right taking them
apart getting to the battery it's
extremely fiddly work uh like tiny tiny
little parts like small screws and very
careful carefully placed ribbon cables
and all kinds of stuff like that which
are not necessarily fun to put together.
I will say
>> uh I've done some and even just Joy-Con
replacements. They're not nearly as bad
as the system, but it's not that fun to
work on them and it can be a bit of a
pain. So, being able to replace
batteries like this makes these models
awesome. And I would hope that they
would just embrace this for uh the
global hardware chain, right? I don't
know if they will, but like I feel like
all new consoles sold, you should just
do this replaceable battery thing
because it does make the hardware like
better in terms of uh you know
longevity.
>> Yep. There's also there's also the
potential to have um more energy dense
cells in there. So you could have longer
battery life for example. Although what
I will say is that you know the story of
um third party batteries that have
actually failed a lot lot quicker than
official batteries. I mean, I've got a
lot of uh uh sad stories to tell on that
front, particularly when it comes to my
Dyson vacuum cleaner, but um yeah,
interesting question from teasing
hilarity. How Howdy Foundryman
exclamation point. Given Nintendo have
to produce the EU replaceable battery
model of the Switch do, what do you
think the chances they phase out the OG
model and just go with the EU version
everywhere going forward? While they may
lose some sales from people replacing
their worn bat VOG units, they hedge
against other jurisdictions introducing
similar requirements, keep product lines
and associated tooling, etc. to a
minimum and importantly offer all
consumers the opportunity to keep their
devices going when the battery wears
out. Well, you know, that's going to be
a decision for Nintendo to take, but
they're quite specific at the moment
that it seems to be a particular
variant, I believe, as opposed to like a
sort of global uh roll out. this EU
legislation. There's a lot of stuff in
there that's pretty good. For example,
um the glue that's used to like, you
know, basically keep batteries in place.
A nightmare when it comes to actually
fixing these things, that's not allowed.
And similarly, they need to reply uh
supply replacement parts for 5 years
after the final device comes off the
production line, which again I think is
is is pretty cool. Um Oliver, what do
you make of all of this?
>> Yeah, I think this is pretty good. But I
think the primary change here will be
getting away from the glued batteries,
which is very common in consumer
electronics nowadays to ship devices
with glued batteries as opposed to
screwed in batteries or batteries
secured through other means. Um, which
is great because right now if you have a
Switch 2 unit, you want to replace the
battery. I think you basically have to
soak soak it in isopropyl alcohol to get
the adhesive to be removed and then you
can remove the adhesive and then you can
stick another battery in there. But it's
kind of a process. This should ease up
that whole process considerably. If they
do move towards screws and pull tabs and
easier methods of removing a battery,
that would be great. Um, I would say
that most Switch 2 users won't need to
replace the battery hopefully. But
definitely if you do use your Switch for
extended periods or for a very long
time, right, over the course of a decade
plus, you need to replace that battery,
this is going to be a really good
solution for those users and it's going
to enhance the durability lifespan of
switch to units in the weld, which is
great. I'm not sure they're going to do
this for the whole world because I think
it is just cheaper, simpler um to use to
use glue and possibly you can also fit
in a slightly higher capacity cell as
well just because you don't need to have
the kind of associated like tooling and
marks and areas needed to screw down a
battery. You can actually have those be
filled with battery because glue does
not really require nearly as much space
and things like that. So, yeah, I would
assume this will be EU only, but I
wouldn't mind having a screwed in
switch, too, even if it had like
marginally lower battery life. I think
that's a trade you'd be perfectly
willing to take for much easier
serviceability down the line if you do
want a new battery in your Switch, too.
>> Mhm. Yeah, I'm going to be interested to
see who else follows suit on this, but
certainly the concept of replaceable
batteries is a is a good thing. Um,
speaking of devices where the battery
hasn't gone great, for me personally,
the original Steam Deck, um, I didn't
use it for some time and I actually
found that, um, while the battery life
seemed, uh, on the face of it to be
okay, the device would occasionally just
shut down during play randomly. And I
think it just wasn't delivering the
requisite power anymore.
>> Um, which which wasn't great, right? But
you know those devices, the PC side of
things, um certainly it's uh quite easy
to remove the back at least. Yeah. And
to get at things. Yeah. Right.
>> Yeah. But um the switch was definitely a
lot lot more difficult. Um I kind of
want to take a look at this new version.
Um the legislation comes into force
February next year, I believe. So I'm
curious as to whether we're going to see
it sooner rather than later.
>> Um anyway, um let's move on. Okay. So,
somehow the RTX 3060 has returned. This
has been rumored for some time. Uh the
concept that Nvidia is going to bring
back a 5-year-old graphics card to
address uh issues in the supply chain.
We actually now have evidence that it
has actually happened. I mean, Oliver,
you talked to Nvidia in CES, I believe,
to talk to say these rumors true, and
they basically said it never left
production. Uh which I I couldn't back
that up at all. I couldn't find 3060 for
sale uh in the UK. 3050 on the other
hand I think is fair that it did seem to
still be there.
>> But uh a company called Manly M L I not
not the traditional you uh English
spelling or meaning they have actually
released um a new 3060 apparently. Um it
seems to be the good news is it's the 12
GB model uh 3584 CUDA cores looks like
uh standard specification 3060. Um and
they've released unfortunately a 6 GB
3050. Um the original was 8 GB. So
obviously they've cut down the the
memory interface there, reduced
bandwidth. I'm going to be interested to
see whether Eddie War people actually
bring out a new a quote unquote new 3060
and the extent to which um it will
actually proliferate in the market. I
think at this point I'm kind of doubtful
as it if it's going to sort of get a
sort of widescale re-release unless it
is super cheap to make because um um you
know in the UK you can pick up a a 5060
8 gig model for I don't know about £260
which I think is pretty good value
certainly in the current climate. Um but
Oliver I'm just kind of curious what you
make of this uh um whole situation. It's
kind of bizarre to resurrect a 5year-old
graphics card, isn't it?
>> Yeah. The comment the specific comment
that you received from Nvidia CES was
that like you said, these cards had
never left production, which uh I'm I'm
not sure how to square that with the
fact that I don't really see any 3060s
for sale at the moment, but apparently
there are new cards coming from Manly.
There's also a report that some limited
supplies will be coming from apparently
colorful ASUS, MSI, and Galax according
to a rumor. So, that's an interesting
Yeah, that's an interesting outcome that
apparently was that was reported by
Video Cards a little bit ago um uh about
a month ago. So, I I will be curious to
see what happens. I actually think these
cards are a good match for the needs of
modern games actually because they
combine decent performance with 12 GB of
frame buffer, you know, and good rate
tracing performance and things like
that. So, they're not quite at the level
of like a current generation console
necessarily in terms of rasterization
performance, but they are just about
there in terms of the performance that
you need for modern games with enough
frame buffer to back it up, right? and
run your high settings, high hair, high
textures, whatever. Run Indiana Jones
with no great worries or corals should
be fine. So, that's very positive in my
view. But, yeah, I am curious to see
where this goes. I'm not entirely sure
where this supply is coming from. Maybe
Nvidia had some spare parts. You never
really know with supply because Nvidia
could be producing cards and they could
be holding on to them. They could have a
backstock of cards. We don't really know
what the production status is on these 8
nmter cards from Samsung, right? Who
knows what what's being produced at what
times, but I actually think this would
this is not the worst line to come back
with the needs of modern games. I
actually think this 3060 12 GB model has
aged quite well. Now, uh 306 GB modu
model I don't think has aged nearly as
well unless you need like a u device
that does not use external PC power,
right? But it's still quite good for uh
a device that does not use PCIe power,
but 6 GB is not really good for anything
but esports these days. 8 GB is really
the minimum you would want to be at for
current gen AAA software. And then 12 GB
is much much more comfortable obviously
for modern games.
>> Mhm. Yeah. John, what do you make of
this? I mean, here's the thing, right? I
mean, it is 5 years old. Uh we should be
considering it obsolete and yet
12 GB of RAM, that's a very very good
thing. uh you've got DLSS obviously
which is you know fantastic technology
it works
um and it may not be as powerful as a
PlayStation 5 GPU but you've got better
upscaling and you know obviously
developers are trying to address like uh
1440p to 4K resolutions with PlayStation
5 via upscaling and the 3060 might be
weaker but you know chances are it's
going to be addressing 1080p and 1440p
screens so I'd say But if the price is
right, there's actually good reasons to
to bring back the 3060. I mean, you
know, it it still performs reasonably
well. You know, it's not as if the
feature set has disappeared. It is still
supported via driver updates. It is like
number one or number two in the Steam
hardware survey. So, a lot of people are
using these cards. I mean, if you're
going to bring back some older GPUs,
there are worse contenders.
Indeed. Uh I just think it's funny that
we can now pair a 3060 with a a newly
re-released 5800 X3D and you build you
you build a it's like building a retro
PC in the modern and era. But
>> uh I mean it does it does kind of feel
like the requirements on games have kind
of settled into largely like a I don't
want to say a rut, but we've reached a
point where even those older GPUs are
still viable, which it's interesting to
reflect on. It's probably good in terms
of like value for customers. uh like in
the early days of 3D cards or the 2000s,
like you could never imagine like a
5-year-old graphics card still being
viable in the face of new releases,
right? Like just no way. Uh but
obviously times have changed and uh
given the cost of components. I mean,
this is it's it's one way to go about
it, I guess.
>> Mhm. Yeah, I was just checking your
dates there, and you're quite right.
There's an uh 13month difference, I
think. Uh maybe 14 month difference in
the release date between the 3060 and
the 5800 X3.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They they're they're I
remember them being a bit contemporary
though. Usually if you get a 5800 X3D,
you would have a higherend GPU, but
still
they're both aged hardware.
>> Yeah, absolutely. I guess we just need
to wait and see what the proliferation
of these cars is going to be. But, you
know, there are worse options. Um but
similarly, we've had rumors this week
and actually Will talked about it on the
website about um the fact that the 50
series super um Blackwell super cards
with more memory may actually be
launched next year um being announced at
CES 2027 I guess. And um that would kind
of like be a good thing. Um there have
been rumors for some time that um there
was going to be a 9 gigabyte version of
the 50/50 and then there were rumors
there's going to be a 9 gigabyte version
of the 5060 and the way that that
actually becomes a thing is that um
instead of having four memory IC's on
the board you have three and those three
have higher capacities. Uh the problem
being that obviously you're losing
memory bandwidth because the the bus is
uh cailed. Now, it kind of made sense
for the 50/50 because they were going to
swap out um GDDR6 memory for GDDR7,
which is basically twice as fast. So,
even though you've lost bandwidth on the
bus, you're gaining it from the speed of
the of the memory IS. Uh that product
never seemed to come out and I kind of
think that's a bit of a shame. And um
yeah, similarly then the rumors of the 9
GB 5060, you would have lost performance
on that uh because it's already got G7,
but um you would have had an extra
gigabyte of memory. And what we've been
seeing recently in terms of optimized
settings for um 8 GB cards is that 8
gigs is is kind of not good enough.
>> But it often seems like 9 GB might be
good enough. So, I was really hope I was
really hoping to see that 5050 9 GB come
out because it would it effectively
offers 4060 performance, which is okay,
but then you've got just a little bit of
extra memory that would potentially
allow for those higher quality textures
to to come into play. But obviously, if
there is going to be a 5060 Super that's
12 GB, well, happy days. Um it is kind
of odd though Oliver that you know extra
memory being offered
extra memory being offered um in in uh
when there's a memory crisis
but I guess obviously it's down to the
supply of these um 3 GB memory modules
and maybe that has improved.
>> Yeah. And maybe I mean with some of
these products you don't you don't
really know what the me the specifics of
the memory market look like. like maybe
there's a bit more supply for G6 modules
for this RTX 3060 device. Like maybe
that's actually viable to ship something
with 12 GB or maybe they just have the
allocation already bought and need to
fill it somewhere, you know? Who knows
exactly? Um but yeah, I would I would
really hope to see the super series and
if not the super series, then just
something using these 3 GB modules
because that seems like a really good
way to allay some of these memory
pressures that are facing modern games.
8 GB is not so comfortable in a lot of
modern games. Um, you really have to go
down in terms of the settings. You don't
really want to be in a scenario where
you're at a where you're at a worse
memory capacity relative to consoles. I
think historically speaking, that's
actually not been a good way to go. And
I think we're seeing that this
generation, but like you said, kind of
the pressures in terms of supply and
pricing pushing you completely in the
other direction are really not too
attractive at the moment. So, I do hope
we see that super series though, and I
do hope we see these 3 GB module GPUs
hit the market soon because they seem
like a good mix for the current range of
rendering challenges where maybe we're
not so pushed on bandwidth, maybe we're
not so pushed on compute or rate tracing
capability, but we just need more frame
buffer with these lowerend GPUs to be
really comfortable.
>> That's a point you've come up with quite
a lot, John, which is basically, hey,
today's hardware, it's actually pretty
good. you know, when do we actually need
new technology at this point?
>> I, you know, I think about that a lot,
especially on the high end, right? Like
it feels like Nvidia put all their
effort into hitting the 5090 and they're
like, "Okay, that was too far. You got
to back off,
you know, and it just we've kind of been
everybody's been settling for a lot
less." Like it it's it's weird how how
the market has changed and I guess the
part shortage has a lot to do with it.
So, in the spirit of that, Rich, when
you go to a computer shop or even like
Amazon or something, I still see a lot
of cards like the RTX 3050, right?
>> I even see the the GTX 1660 around,
>> man.
>> Do you want do you want to know what
card kind of slots around that that that
era? You know, that we maybe it's time
to bring it back. Say it with me now.
AMD Radeon Ride Fury X. It's time for
the revival, baby. the 11-year
anniversary.
>> Oh dear. You've got an interesting uh
obsession with the Fury X, haven't you,
John?
>> I do. I love the Fury X.
>> The, you know, I'm sort of just sort of
still harboring. I mean, the my sort of
uh review of the Fury X, it was one of
those situations where um the card comes
in for review and um you have to keep
benchmarking it because the results
aren't as good as you think they're
going to be or have been promised. And
um you know I distinctly recall AMD
saying it was going to be an
overclocker's dream and it was unstable
when I added 50 megahertz to the to the
core. It was kind of like you know it
happens a lot. It happened with the 1970
GRE recently where my review was a day
late because you know um it just didn't
make sense. None of the results I got in
made sense. It just looked like poor
value. Why would you release a poor
value when the press deck is coming up
with, you know, value scenarios which
make it look great? You know, you start
to doubt your own sanity. Um, but what I
will say is that pretty much in each and
every time that this has happened, the
the numbers are the numbers and it's
just not a particularly great product.
I got to say there, Rich, looking at the
relative performance according to this
chart, the G RTX5090 is 785%
faster than the R9 Fury X,
man. Cazy stuff.
Okay, let's move on to our final news
topic. Well, it's not a news topic as
such. Um, obviously we now have via Will
Jud a website that tells us what we were
up to one year ago, 5 years ago, 10
years ago. There's a lot of E3 stuff in
there this week, perhaps not
surprisingly, but John, um, you
highlighted that
it is five years ago that AMD released
FSR1, uh, which is one of those periods
of time, one of those pieces of content
where, you know, you say things that
actually are true, but people just don't
want to accept it and, uh, you you end
up getting hammered on social media and
stuff like that. Poor old Alex had a bad
time of it back in the day with FSR1
because he told it, you know, he told it
how it was or or how he saw it and um
yeah um it turns out that it is a pretty
basic upscaler and not particularly
great and better things were to come
from AMD. Um I mean five year five years
on we're on FSR4. The gap has been
closed with Nvidia effectively, but uh
it certainly wasn't 5 years ago.
Oh yeah, that that was an interesting
time because people were and rightfully
so looking for an answer to DLSS2
because let's remember DLSS1 from 2018
not good but DLSS2 by that point was
excellent especially for the era and FSR
was sort of rumored to be AMD's like
sort of tackling of this uh whole like
upsampling thing right but as we would
later learn it really was never intended
to be that. It was not a product that
could compete with what DLSS had become
and it wasn't built to do that either.
Uh and I remember when Alex was first
looking at it, he was just like
>> like what is going on? This is really
bad.
>> Like he was he was not impressed. And it
also forced him to play a lot of
Godfall, which is a game nobody talks
about anymore. If you remember, it was
the era of Godfall.
Uh but and that was I guess one of the
first games to support it.
>> But it turned out to just be a spatial
upscaler with sharpening
>> essentially. It wouldn't be until
>> FSR2 is when they when they actually
made the leap, right?
>> Mhm. Yeah, there was a leap there, but
even then, you know, FSR 2 was being
called a DLSS killer and what it was a
gigantic improvement, let's be clear
here, but it wasn't a DLSS killer.
>> No. Um, and in fact, you know, FSR4 has
come along and it's quite interesting
that while the quality is there, I don't
think anybody's calling it a DLSS killer
anymore, even when it's got the the
greatest claim to actually being, you
know, comparable technology. Really,
really bizarre stuff.
>> It's good. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I mean, Oliver, um, you'd think 5
years on FSR1 should be far away in the
rear view mirror, but it's it's not, is
it?
>> No. No, it's not. And indeed with some
of these Nintendo titles we uh tend to
load up when we look at the IP notices
in those titles is we often notice SMAA
very common uh anti-aliasing technique
that Nintendo likes but also FSR1 is
very commonly named in those titles.
Nintendo in particular loves to use FSR1
to upscale their games. Capcom also
still likes to use FSR1 quite a bit with
their R engine titles. I think it was
used in Pragmata as well as Resident
Evil Reququum 2 very recent re engine
titles. Um, which I think is interesting
because perhaps the biggest problem with
FSR1 doesn't really have to do with its
actual quality. I think it just has to
do with kind of convincing developers in
some cases, hey, here's an alternative
way of upscaling your game where you
don't necessarily need temporal
upscaling because I think temporal
upscaling almost universally produces a
better result. And some game engines
like the RE engine are very capable of
supporting it, right? But for some
reason on PC and on consoles, um, Capcom
and other developers seem to prefer
FSR1. Maybe it's a little bit easier to
work with, but for whatever reason, they
stick with FSR1 and produce results that
just aren't good enough in those titles.
Um, but I do think it's an acceptable
upscaler uh for spatial upscaling as
long as you don't view it as Diosysis
alternative, which is unfortunate
because that's the way that Andy was
marketing it at the time. they were
marketing it as here's our alternative
to DLSS. It wasn't remotely close to the
quality of DLSS at that time and
obviously it isn't now. Um it does also
tend to produce kind of a certain
stereotyped look to imagery that I don't
really like necessarily when you look at
it closely. It tends to smooth out
edges. It tends to round out edges and
produce almost kind of a slightly
painterly look on the final image. can
depend on the resolution of the source
content and what you're upscaling to.
But often times it produces a little bit
of an ugly looking image I would suggest
and in those cases I'd prefer a bilinear
upscale. Honestly, I don't really need
this kind of very artificial looking
final resolve in my uh computer
software. So I think it's been not so
successful but you know looking on the
bright side I think FSR2 is a big
improvement. FSR3 still a further
improvement on the analytical side of
things. And then FSR4, FSR 4.1, and the
enhanced version of PSSR. Those are all
greatly improved versions of this kind
of upscaling family that do produce a
meaningfully improved image with the
full detail you'd expect from a high
resolution image. So there's been a lot
of improvements in the space, but it's
unfortunate in 2026 to still have to
talk about. FSR1 is a contemporary piece
of rendering technology because so many
developers continue to use it and don't
I don't think it's the right solution
for most titles.
>> Yeah, it was um a particular pain point
in Pragmata and um Resident Evil Recreum
to the point where you kind of wonder
why Capcom did it.
It's kind of a bit weird there. Yeah, I
mean there were some good things about
it, right? you know, open source. Um,
you know, that was something that AMD
was very very heavily invested, still
heavily invested in, but obviously, um,
FSR4, I'm not sure of the extent to
which ML stuff there can actually
transfer to other GPUs, but you know,
FSR2 obviously gained a lot of, um, uh,
traction across many many systems. Um,
so, you know, that that was a sort of
useful legacy, so to speak. But, you
know, all paths seem to be converging
now on machine learning. Although, you
know, there are still um some some
pretty impressive uh uh temporal
solutions out there. Um yeah,
that's all we really got to say about
that one. Um any final words on that
one John?
>> Uh just it's I'm it's become a bit of a
scourge and I wish that uh Japan had
never been made aware of the existence
of one. A lot of those developers are
the only ones that seem to hang on to it
when there's just better, less ugly
upscaling solutions that are just as
cheap or cheaper
>> out there. Well, it is very, very cheap.
That's the thing. I think that's the
reason Capcom are using it. It was in
Hogwarts as well.
>> Hogwarts Legacy used FSR1. Yeah. Quite a
bit. Um, now on the PS5 Pro version, it
uses PSSR one, which then you can
upgrade to PSSR 2 using the override.
But yeah, it uses FSR1. and all the
console versions which does lend it
again a bit of that kind of painterly
look. You can kind of spot it from a
mile away once you're trained on it. You
can really spot that heavily upscale.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I think you know back in the day
some of the push back against Alex's um
analysis was it, you know, he did an
image quality analysis and he wasn't
particularly concerned about the frame
rate boosts that you get. And you did
get big frame rate boosts from FSR1
because it doesn't do much and it's
effectively running the game at a lower
resolution. Right. Yes. And Alex wasn't
particularly concerned about that
because that wasn't his particular
focus. Alex is like, well, it's so super
PCentric, but I can tell everyone here
that he just doesn't care about
benchmarks that much. You know, it's
he's interested in the in the
experience. I remember there was um I
think it was uh when we did XESS,
um we had the first look at XESS
upscaling. gave it a pretty good review,
but Intel were asking me, you know, um,
you know, how do how can we make sure
Alex is isn't going to benchmark the
card cuz it's not out yet. And I'm sort
of saying to them, look, Alex has no
interest in knowing what this precise
benchmarks of your new GPU are
whatsoever. He's really is focused on
the experience here and what XSS is
delivering. But yeah, I mean, um,
interesting to see what the DF Time
Machine is bringing up here. Um, it's a
website that will put together and uh,
yeah, just it's wall to-wall E3 stuff.
Otherwise, going back 10 years, Zelda
Breath of the Wild, Wii U E3 frame rate
test, and those favorites work great
from what I remember. And, uh, yeah, we
were looking at Days Gone on PS4. E3
demo performance wasn't great. It got a
lot better. Yeah, crazy stuff. Um, we
shall continue with our retrospectives
though cuz as well we really enjoyed
going back and uh re revisiting some of
those older stories and sharing some of
the anecdotes from back in the day. But
that is the end of this particular
episode of DF Direct. Hope you enjoyed
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