Red Dead Redemption is one of those games that deserved much more than a cheap port without any enhancements, seriously.

It was pretty awesome to see Mark Cerny take the time to write to you guys knowing that you would discuss it in an honest way. I'd like to see more of this where they go directly to the people, through the least biased content they prefer

Dr Demento is now part of the DF cinematic universe! It is also quite awesome that Mark Cerny reached out with the Atmos-explanation!

The big issue I think most people have with the RDR port is the price. Here in Australia, it’s $90. That really isn’t acceptable for what looks like a straight port of a 13 year old game.

I concur with the others, I would love to see a DF deep dive into Dolby Atmos. I would love for DF to start talking more about 3D audio in general when doing technical analysis on games, as it’s a sorely underrepresented area in gaming altogether. Some things I’d love to see - Deep dive on the Dolby Atmos lag situation on Xbox. Comparing between different formats, different games with audio latency testers to maximize database. Also the difference in lag when using devices like the Sharc/Fientech - Optimal TV settings and setup for Dolby Atmos systems (such as passthrough settings), eArc setup and why these settings are important for an optimal home theatre experience on both Xbox & PS5. - A deep dive into the technicals of Dolby Atmos, the different codecs its uses for different mediums (such as Dolby Mat vs TrueHD vs Dolby Digital Plus). - A deep dive into the technicals of the Microsoft Spatial Sound API vs the competing Sony’s Tempest API/PS5 Audio SDK and how they compare, what features do they support, what’s their issues, etc. - A deep dive into the Atmos implementation on different gaming devices (PS5, Xbox, PC). How does the upmixing work on Xbox/PC for non native Atmos games vs the PS5, and what different protocols they use (example Xbox always sends non native 7.1.4 mixes to Dolby Surround Upmixer even if no upmixing is selected via the Dolby app, with PC it will only send the audio through DSU when the Upmixer setting is on, and PCM audio when it’s turned off, PS5 encodes all non native Atmos mixes via Dolby Mat, but only applies upmixing when Tempest was originally supported). - A solid list and comparison between the mix quality of native Atmos games on Xbox, PC and PS5 and how they compare. - You mention going to Playground games and Guerrilla Games audio studios, and I’ve seen you bring guests onto your show (such as Tom Warren). Getting some Audio Engineers from big game developers would be an interesting watch, learning how Spatial Audio is injected into games, how middleware & audio engines work, what their biggest issues and problems are when working with spatial audio and all those kinds of questions that a audio engineer would have much better insight over. -Mentioning the overall audio mix quality of a game when doing analysis on games, and wether they have native support for 7.1.4, Dolby Atmos, Tempest/HRTF, etc. Also, I’m not some guy from twitter John, you can refer to me as El Chapo, and contrary to popular belief, he loves audio in games! Appreciate everything you’ve been doing for the high-end audio + gaming community lately ❤

The reason movies work well without lag is because the lip sync adjustment is being applied automatically. The audio chain sends the total latency back to the media player as feedback. This is why Bluetooth headphones don't have lag on KZfaq but have lag in games

The Dolby atmos stuff is really interesting!! I’d love to see a full video analysis detailing the issue

I just wanna say thanks to the makers of Baldur's Gate 3 for releasing a game in 2023 without DRM, without game breaking bugs and without micro transactions or predatory DLC's. A breath fresh air!

USB-C is designed for frequent unplugging. USB A was not designed in an era of frequent unplugging. USB 3 type A is even worse. I'm sure most of the damage at evo was physical strain, though all the heat probably didn't help. They should have used USB 2.0 extension cables mounted to the table. Something expendable, more robust and also visible.

Man I'm disappointed you haven't played through RDR, such a great story and so much more.

Dr. Demento was played by Rainn Wilson in the Weird Al movie with Daniel Radcliffe.

I hope the RDR conversion at least fixes the longstanding issues with the Undead Nightmare DLC, which was basically broken by the final RDR title update in 2014 and suffers from constant crashes and bizarre bugs like the zombies turning into headless bandits with guns, which you can even see in DF's backcompat coverage of the DLC from a few years ago. These issues largely went unnoticed at the time aside from various forum and Reddit posts, so Rockstar has been selling a broken product for nine years without anyone really noticing or caring. Hopefully the bugs will finally be fixed, but I'm not holding my breath.

I’m 100% here for a Sonic Adventure DF Retro! On original Dreamcast hardware, if possible!

A detachable drive on the PS5 “Slim” would be amazing not only for choice, as you can upgrade a driveless, but for also repair, as mechanical things tend to break faster then the rest.

I love the way the OG PS3 looked if you kept it scratch free

That Dolby Atmos breakdown is seriously interesting

I'd love to see Alien Isolation get full path tracing. That game is made for something like that. Maybe an enhancement to materials also would go a long way. Another game would be Amnesia TDD and even The Bunker. These games look good to great but I feel we're missing out on a richer and creepier atmosphere by not having the best lighting and shading.

PC aside, the problem with Red Dead is entirely the price. As shown by the far more impressive Quake II release in this video being $10/free for existing owners.

I’d like to see more old school games having path tracing implemented ( like Quake ). I would love to see the Thief games (The Dark Project, The Metal Age and Deadly Shadows) have a similar solution. I think it would look fantastic. I don’t know If the shadows would change position as a result and end up breaking the games.

I never thought I’d see the day we’d have a Weird Al/Digital Foundry crossover, but here we are.

I would have loved to see RDR on PC. Oh well

I was able to fix the Xbox series atoms issue in an odd way. I have a Samsung tv and a Samsung sound bar. I used to use an lg atmos capable sound bar but since switching to a Samsung brand sound bar the lag is now gone while using atmos even via eARC. I’m not sure if this is due to the partnership Samsung has with Xbox and being able to process the sound more efficiently but it’s something worth taking a look into. Also another interesting tidbit is that if I use Samsungs q-symphony function the lag comes back. But if I only use the sound bar for audio the issue is resolved.

What pisses me off is that Rockstar has more money than most companies and they chose to make a PS4 PORT and not a current gen remaster.. fucking incredible

I'd love to see the Dolby Delay on Xbox/PC get its own deep dive video. It's been an issue for far too long without any official word from MS. Perhaps coming under the scrutiny of a high profile team like DF may encourage MS to be more transparent about the issue. I'd love an eventual fix, but I'm not holding my breath .

Rockstar calling PS4 a modern platform is a worrying sign for the current generation of consoles.

I measured the audio latency of the various codecs on Series X by making audio recordings of clicking the D pad on the controller in the XBox dashboard and the subsequent “click” sound from the UI, and then bringing up the waveform in an audio editor and measuring the time between the amplitude peaks. Obviously this includes the input latency, but it’s a helpful way of empirically comparing the latency of the different codecs.

That Coby TV actually died on me the next time I used it after making that video, so it ended up in the e-waste bin, where it belonged originally.

RetroTink 4K looks incredible

I will be really disappointed if Switch 2 doesn't feature VRR in some capacity. We have this amazing tech that solves all sorts of problems at no cost and it would just be incredibly frustrating to see Nintendo ignore it.

The quake 2 remaster is a breath of fresh air.

I had the exact same reaction to Quake 2, John. I bought it on PS5, as I had it on Steam and disc since forever. But I was astonished at how good it felt using a controller on PS5. I have a strong aversion to using gamepads with shooters. And I haven't felt thumb stick controls this good since Darkwatch.

I grew up with the 25th anniversary 2 CD collection of Dr. Demento songs, so I knew exactly who Alex was referring to in the Ratchet video. It introduced me not only to Weird Al, but other greats like Tom Lehrer, Allan Sherman, and even The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

Just gonna give "Ratchet and Clank three-way" a quick google

Emulated Red Dead Redemption on the Xenia emulator earlier this year, and it was a blast. And with a simple gameshark like code I had it running in 21:9 as if it was actually designed that way. Awesome experience, and yes, a bump in resolution and framerate is everything that's needed for this game to hold up just fine. But no pc release is a baffling decision. RDR1 has one of the best endings in gaming. And is short enough to complete in less than a week, if you keep to the main quests

I LOVED the extra length DF news this week!

Man if the 7900XT had been $750 at launch, it would of been a real banger. Positive reviews everywhere.

You can judge the size of it based on the width of the disk drive slot. It can only really be one size. So its a bit smaller.

over 2 hours of good contents. thanks guys

For Atmos, movies don't have the delay because it will automatically delay video with audio. It's an eARC feature, "Auto lip sync"

Dolby media playback doesn't have a delay because it's probably delaying the video to sync it, as is the case with BT audio sometimes.

Great show as always, thanks DF exclamation point

50 bucks for that is laughable. Maybe for a proper remake with rdr2 graphics but for a crappy GTA Definitive Edition part 2 debacle? Rockstar has lost its mind.

thought it was just my setup giving me the audio lag on xbox. eventually got my settings okay enough, like what you recommend. but good to know its not just me. thank you for touching on the audio issues!

Correction: EVO took place in Nevada not California and the DualSense controller does not come packaged with a cable at all. The Edge ships with a USB-C to A cable. I’m not eager to defend corporate behemoths like Sony, but I’d guess the anecdotes about USB-A cables breaking off in the socket has more to do with the quality of the user’s cable (or possibly their mental state while disconnecting it) than it does with the PS5 socket.

Love the DF weekly thank you team. From someone who loves gaming and has been console gaming since the NES and 286 pc computers a huge thank you and your always the best team forever a fan. Love the DF weekly and then when you cover a game I’m excited for or love playing it’s the best thank you always DF keep it up.

SpecialK has been very reliable in terms of fixing frame pacing issues. For DX11 games I think it mainly achieves this by enforcing a proper FLIP model rather than BLT. And not only it solves frame pacing issues, for those games that use BLT you can't run VRR with borderless fullscreen. Using SpecialK solves that.

Atmos isn't just 7.1.4. That's just a common configuration. Atmos can go up to 24.1.10. The reason this is possible, is because Atmos audio isn't channel based, like normal audio. Different sounds are encoded to "audio objects" which are individual sounds that have 3D positional information. These objects can move anywhere around and above you, in any direction, as well as anywhere in between, so a sound can happen right at the listener's position for example, which might be common for music. So what PS5 appears to be doing is SIMULATING a 7.1.4 setup by creating 11 audio objects that have static positions based on the default speaker locations in a 7.1.4 sound system, plus an LFE channel. The problem is, with Atmos, your speakers don't have to be placed at the default locations (atmos receivers often have ways to customize or measure differences in speaker locations), so these virtual channels won't always perfectly map to where your speakers are, even if you have a 7.1.4 setup. Personally, I would have rather they mixed it to dozens of 3D audio objects all around the listener, and let the Atmos receiver determine how to render that to everybody's individual speaker system.

I think you guys should do a video on how well DLSS3 scales down the 4000 series stack. Does it work on a 4060 where Vram is limited? I've seen benchmarks suggesting it does not. I'd like to see that concept explored.

Thank you John for the words about the horizontal orientation with the PS5 stand. I often wondered if I was doing something wrong or if mine was defective since if you even look at it crooked the console slides off!

Speaking of audio delays, you can really tell these two were not speaking to each other in real time on this one.

On the topic of Atmos delay, I get it when watching movies on my 4K Blu-ray player, so I just always assumed it was the receiver having a delay

Gotta say, I rewatched the Roku biopic on weird Al after the Ratchet and Clank video went live. Not as funny as UHF, but damn close.

I can't believe they're not releasing RDR on PC. I've been waiting forever but I guess they've been driving people to emulate it for so long, maybe it's finally time.

You can sell GPL software for money. You are simply required to release the entire source code. There's nothing preventing Bethesda or Night Dive from including NVIDIA's path-traced renderer in the KEX engine, but it would require them to then release the source code for KEX.

I'm not claiming to know whether Red Dead or MGS4 can't/don't get ports because of "spaghetti code." But Rich, you seemed to be skeptical that "spaghetti code" was a real concept? Or maybe I'm just not understanding your comment comparing it to "Blast Processing?" Anyone who's spent much time programming knows it's a real thing, and a real thing that can happen. "Spaghetti," as in following it (reading it) requires following a trail of code that wraps in every direction, entangled randomly with other code, without coherency or order. The phrase has a similar meaning to "rat's nest." The point is that it _is_ possible to write code that's extremely difficult for an outsider to follow and understand. It's usually code that's written in a hurry, usually written in a way that ignores any edge cases other than exactly what's needed in the moment to ship a product. In the context of gaming this can also explain lack of PC port. You guys know better than most that a PC port of this game without comprehensive and modern settings would get absolutely panned. But if the original code for Red Dead is actually "spaghetti" (difficult to follow, written hyper-specific to the exact hardware they were trying to run it on), making a proper PC port out of it could be near-impossible without some degree of an actual rewrite, which is obviously a much larger task. Again, I don't know whether Red Dead falls into the "spaghetti code" category. But in case your insinuation was that it's just an empty "marketing term" akin to blast processing, while the label is kind of lighthearted, it's a very real issue that programmers deal with across the industry, whether they're writing games or not. It results in software that you're afraid to actually modify in any meaningful way.

I'm so hyped for the TINK4K. Finally a decent solution for playing retro consoles on modern TVs.

Since I recently bought rear speakers for an Atmos sound bar, I experimented quite a bit with my PS5. I found that both Bitstream options (Dolby and DTS) introduce a small delay compared to surround PCM, which to my eyes and ears don't suffer from any delay, and the sound bar receives sound from my LG CX via eArc. I used Trackmania as a test, which has a similar tool to the one that John is describing for Hi-Fi Rush. Mark Cerny saying that the delay is consistent with the previous bitstream options doesn't sound promising to me specifically 😅. Anyway, being a sound bar with up-firing speakers, if there was a small delay I'd rather lose the height channel and have no delay.

Now I cannot stop calling the boss Dr. Demento. Thanks Alex.

The voice actor for Doc Nefarious is Quark from Deep Space Nine

I used to listen Dr Demento on PYX 106.5 Albany.

playing the quake 2 remaster on my Ally and its so damn good, what a perfect match up of hardware and game, 15w flat 120hz smooth as silk gameplay. we need more where that came from.

John got mentioned in the credits for street fighter 2 the movie’s blu ray ;). He did a special feature on it

I'm sure you guys would be interested to hear what GPU Audio are doing 🤔

Long episode this week, nice.

Really excited for the RetroTink 4k - will probably pick one up to replace my framemeister. Less excited for the vague "budget for $1,000" on the site...

My guess is that these new plates allow more air to enter since the sides have a nice slit underneath wear the fan sets.

Them being credited in Crysis Remastered 2 and 3 makes a lot of sense. Their hefty feedback definitely kept QC for the games in check. I do wonder if they were heavily responsible for Crytek changing the color grading in 2. I know that they hated the color grading in the original.

I purchased Panzer Dragoon Saga the first day it was available at a small indie game store in Flushing, NY. It was $39. I've heard reports over the years that only 4,000 copies were made for the US. I'm almost positive there would have been more "disc 1" copies produced for Rich's Saturn magazine!

I've tried Adaptive Sync in the Nvidia Driver recently and while the Vsync part still works, it doesn't seem to be adaptive and is always triple buffered from my brief testing. While I haven't compared input lag yet, I would really like the option to choose how a game is Vsynced so I could use double buffered in games that won't have performance drops or adaptive/triple buffering in more demanding games.

just when i was about to give up, DF drops another video

Retrotink 4k is on my wishlist. This device looks incredible. Take my money product ✨️

I'm in the seemingly small minority of people who vastly preferred RDR1 to 2. I just found it more engaging and interesting in every way.

I've been doing the PS5 beta, I was interested in the Dolby Atmos update. I have a nice Samsung soundbar that supports Atmos. I saw there's a fairly short list of games that support Tempest 3D audio on PS5. Returnal is one of them, so I have really been wanting to check that out with the new Atmos update. The environmental alien sound effects all around you in returnal are absolutely incredible

Did you say, "It just works" while discussing the Tempest audio 😅😉

1:20:02 Nice sound effect made by Alex

The thing is, if its not encoded or mastered in Atmos dont call it Atmos. Call it whatever 3D audio Tempest blar blar or whatever. When people see Atmos they expect Atmos no matter how close it may be.

What's up nerds?

Referring to Atmos delay, I think the delay may come from Directx implementation in windows and Xbox, hence windows and Xbox both exhibit it (and why it’s not in ps5)

A 2 hour episode? It’s Christmas!

Re: PC version of RDR I think it has to do with the price point tbh. RDR2 is on sale for 19.99 pretty much all the time now so releasing the older game at 50 would look really silly. So it's probably gonna come eventually, at 29.99 is my guess. But still, Rockstar got their own launcher on PC now. But they're not releasing games on it? What? And stuff like that new GTA V update like Alex mentioned. Why would anyone support it then? Rockstar lives with some weird, outdated 2010 mindset still where the PC is some secondary market, when it's probably the opposite that's true and it has the largest GTA Online community now.

My biggest problem with the RDR situation is that it's f***ing 50 dollars! For a port! A 13 year old slightly enhanced port! There's no reality in which that is okay. 50 bucks is too much for remasters, and here Rockstar and T2 try to charge nearly full price for it. They're such a scummy company....

Dr. Dimento’s radio show was amazing as a kid.

john always comes in hot whenever the term "streaming" comes around

I never knew PS5’s 3D audio was already being leveraged in 5.1/7.1 setups, I kept waiting for that update and thought this was it, when this is really just for 7.1.4 setups. I’ve been primarily playing with my 5.1 but have played a few games like Returnal and Last of Us with both headphones and 5.1, and in both cases, the pros and cons of headphones vs 5.1 were very obvious, for example I could not play Returnal without headphones for long cause the enemy/projectile 3D audio placement was never translated well (if at all) to 5.1, you really need headphone 3D audio to help you get through that game. I even tested the classic HellBlade and the inner voices in 5.1 don’t compare at all to headphones. If current 3D audio-heavy games don’t translate well to 5.1 setups, I fail to see how they would to 7.1.4 without bespoke tailoring, and if devs didn’t bother for 5.1 than I don’t see why they would for a more niche 7.1.4 audience. Having said that, most flat games aren’t really designed with 3D audio in mind and 5.1 is my preferred format more often than not, PlayStation’s 3D audio was made to enhance VR games and that’s where it truly shines, it’s just I kept expecting the benefits of that to be intertwined with the benefits of surround sound setups (mainly the subwoofer) for flat games.

John cracks me up 😂 I hear streaming and I just don't care. Yes I was impressed with GForce Now but then I bought a PC.

I hate the stand for horizontal. Terrible. I should have to manage it's balance overtime i plug peripherals in or out

Isn't it curious that most locked 30fps games don't arrive to PC? Same happened to Crash Team Racing. It feels like they don't wanna sell a 30fps game on PC because they know people would go after them heavily

I empathise, Alex. You're speaking my mind regarding RDR, and I love it.

Love the df team and what you do and bring to the industry. Keep up the great content :) best KZfaq content by a mile.

Goddamnit DX12 causing issues with Atmos on PC and Xbox. Microsoft has so many issues with DX12

I’m glad you guys finally addressed the Dolby Atmos lag issue on Xbox, because I noticed it instantly and thus considered Atmos unusable since I got the console at launch. Hopefully, with more exposure, this will become more of a priority to the powers that be to fix it.

That’s odd, I’m getting sound.

12:25 classic 'in theory' moment

Personally I played Red Dead Redemption a ton back in the day. It remains one of my favorite multi-player games of all time. There was nothing like it: Third person, open world map, online games. I think they won’t ad it because they’re already supporting RDR2, but if they ever do I’d pay extra for access (it’ll never happen) Miss the shootouts at the start of each multi-player match!!

The ps5 accessories are in such a weird spot for existing owners, typically the first batch of slim revision are the one you want to go with daily driving but this doesn’t seem worth it if the internals aren’t that different and with the plates getting shafted why wouldn’t you just wait until end of life to grab the last version for safeguarding your physical library into the future.

I love both Quake 2 RTX and the remaster! If we're lucky someone will eventually port the maps into the Q2PRO sourceport map structure (which should be technically possible!). Took a break from Quakecon to watch this!

Excellent stuff lads.

Surprised to hear you guys haven't played through RDR1. It's a brilliant game that I put in my top 2 of that console gen, the other being TLOU.

The thing is that for AMD and nVidia we are not the main target anymore. It's the AI space. Companies pay way more for a GPU than the average Joe. We are second and we have to live with that. Our only hope is that game developer do such a great job, that we don't need the power. But if I look at this years releases, hope is about to die there, too 😢

And John, GPL is not off-limits for consoles. You can create a lGPL layer to deal with the console-API stuff, and it is all good. It is used often, and there is actually quite a few games on consoles that use GPL software underneath without problems.