Amazing to see Rich once again reviewing. His way with words are just amazing. We need more analysis from him.

Don't think I've seen a DF game review from Rich in a while, this is a nice surprise indeed. Keep up the good work guys.

This is super impressive stuff for a studio that hasn't made a AAA game before. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they'll do in the future.

Man, I forgot how much I love Rich’s analysis. So thorough! Is it possible to get a rare Rich PC analysis of Hogwarts Legacy?! 🤩

Rich is a top notch reviewer. It’s a shame we don’t get more from him. I trust his editorial viewpoint is maintained in all of the other channel content, but it’s still nice to hear him in his own voice.

I am so fascinated to see how the Switch version will end up because that's an "impossible port" if I've ever heard one

I noticed a lot of light flickering in the castle in Fidelity Raytracing mode on PS5. Had to turn it off. Any idea what would cause that and if there is a way to fix it?

Glad we got this guy to do this video, he literally is digital foundry

Rich doesn't often review games anymore, but in the here and now I'm really enjoying the odd analysis done by him. Clearly still the master at it.

PC version definitely needs analysis

Finding myself loving these technical analysis video reviews more and more. These always help in deciding which modes to go with. DF always delivering the content gamers care about. 👏 With that said, anyone else still spend way to long switching between modes to spot the subtle differences? I stay going to random scenic areas in games and will spend exorbitant amounts of time in each mode just to see how the grass looks different in the distance. 🤓🤓

13:41 interesting point about the uncapped frame rate option! The game visuals look pretty impressive. I’m watching the Potter movies now because I missed them over the years, then I’ll give the game a go.

Richard Leadbetter needs to be heard from with more regularity. Awesome review!

Very important! Make sure to turn Camera Acceleration and Aim Acceleration OFF. This will eliminate the artificial Input Lag the game has by Default for some reason…

Glad you did a review, Rich. It's been a while, good to hear from you again. 🙂

Loving the amount of choice and options making their way to console games. As always, great video comparing all these options to help us decide.

Very nice to see a game performance and visual tech review from Richard. Hopefully we will see more.

Super nostalgic getting an analysis from Rich. 😌 Just like the old day

Fantastic analysis and very useful for many of us. I dabbled with a variety of modes on my PS5 and wasn’t sure which was best. It’s good to have a firmer picture of how each mode presents.

A Raging Rich Review! Great job! You should do more of these in the future. Btw, I'm enjoying this game so far at level 23. Looking forward to the last gen breakdown.

Been a long time since a Rich tech breakdown, such a clear and well-spoken review!

Thanks Rich! From the different performance profiles, to just how slow this game progresses to get to a point where you can do your tests, I appreciate the time you put into this. I hope you get a chance to analyze the game for Steam Deck and PC

Another thing to mention is that uncapping the framerate on ps5 seems to lower the color bit rate and significantly makes shadows much greyer and ambient occlusion appears much flatter.

Covering all these modes across 3 consoles in 20 minutes is basically a speed run accomplishment 😃. Seriously though...thanks for this Richard. Thanks for staying true to your reporter's integrity amidst the controversy. Much respect and I'm looking forward to the PC version analysis because that one should be very interesting indeed!

Yay a Rich video! Video was amazingly indepth. Years later watching every video and this channel still blows my mind with the fascinating analysis of games. Cheers guys

Great job on the video Rich, nice to see you back on a performance analysis review. Thanks for all the hard work you do! We really appreciate it.

Rich is so far above the others in journalistic and editorial ability. I’d forgotten how good his writing style and analysis are. More from Rich, pease!

Thanks Rich!! You’re an absolute wizard when it comes to reviews!!

I was playing on PS5's Fidelity RT mode and have not experienced the character dialogue lighting to be this odd. Maybe the 3-point lighting for them is disabled with RT enabled?

Really great review, exposing the highlights and lowlights of the rendering decisions. Performance options are actually understandable for a console, given the variety of monitors capable of high FR and VRR. I really hope DF do PC review, with any extra PC options, and Alex's optimised settings.

The Boss steps up and gets the job done. Thanks, i appreciate this. Handled like a pro, not an excuse in sight. This gives me hope, you should handle more performance reviews, your professionalism shines through the sea of bs, no moaing on, pure unbiased reviewing. The way it should be.

FINALLY! Great video and analysis. You guys always nail it. I was very anticipating this video because of all the various options settings for visuals and the fact that it doesn't really tell you the FPS in the game..

You get broom speed upgrades later through side quests. And a hippogriff mount that is also faster

Appreciate this review, Rich! I'm curious if you have any analysis on HDR here? I've heard from a few people that it's best to leave it off for this game.

How can you run past all those cats wthout petting them? I personally find that impossible.

I have been patiently awaiting this review since Hogwarts Legacy dropped! Thank you guys so much for posting this! I really needed to see this, especially considering all the different graphics options that the game offers. Cheers!

Extremely noble of Richard to step up to the plate on this one, shielding his colleagues from the inevitable onslaught. Much respect.

Wholeheartedly disagree with the "too many visual modes for a console experience" statement. As a PC player who struggles with the overabundance of capped @ 30fps games when going to the console, the option to uncap the framerate is a very welcome change. Having 9 visual modes seems much more freeing for someone like me who would prefer to squeeze a few more frames out in order to make game more responsive. I get that not all console players will know what to do with these options, but who really cares? All PC players have always had to learn what their settings do, so why call it an inconvenience when console players are given the option to do the same?

"stand aside, I'll handle this" -Rich to the DF staff 💪

Gotta love Richard Leadbetter's work. Always excellent.

Journalists, just bring the news, i don't want to know your personal opinions. Thanks Richard for being a professional!!!!

John: Nah, I hate open world games all of the sudden. Alex: 🗿 Richard: Fine I'll do it myself, then.

It would be nice to know what your "preferred" mode is

It's clear that Rich did the review to protect his staff from harassment.

I'm running this game on a PS5 on a C2 42 LG OLED in balanced mode. Most of the time it is an absolute stunner! Clearly there were a lot of Harry Potter nerds amongst the development team :)

Thank you for covering this Richard!

@Digital Foundry So whitch mode do you recommend on series S with VRR and 120hz compatible 1440p 32inch monitor ?

Nice to see someone remembered they have a job to do instead of just calling this game "kids bullshit" and throwing a tantrum on twitter

Awesome to hear a game analysis fro Rich! It's been a while but this was great.

Played it on regular Fidelity mode on my series x and really enjoyed it.

Richard once said that he could not see any benefit for the 2x faster SSD on the PS5, other than faster load screens. Even now he is blind to the reason behind the glaringly obvious PS5 performance advantage. Does he really not know or is he simply hiding it to place Xbox in a better light. Forget GPU upgrades, CPU bottlenecks and dormant cores. This is not a tflops or porting issue. This is a data throughput issue. The game assets are on the SSD. The game is rapidly streaming the assets from SSD to RAM in real time, so the GPU can render them into frames on the fly. The speed of the SSD transfer is crucial. No tinkering on the XBSX will ever make the performance match the PS5, because you cannot plant the 5,500 MBps PS5 SSD into the 2,500 MBps XBSX.

There are broom upgrades that let you go much faster at a higher altitude. Also I can tell the person playing isn’t holding the left trigger which also lets you go much faster.

Aren't M$ fanboys pointing out less TFLOPS in PS5? As you can see, that's not the point.

Great analysis, I currently play Hogwarts legacy on Series S in balanced mode and I haven't noticed any of these performance issues mentioned, however I do play on a VRR display.

So what about the high definition texture pack that you can uninstall on series x idk about ps5 but on series x you can uninstall high definition texture pack so is that just taking the 4k away and just giving you 1080p or is it actually just taking away better textures because you can have better textures on 1080p then 4k if they half to use those resources twords the resolution over actual graphics n I've seen it my self before but I'm just curious about this pack because I am on a 1080p screen so I can't really see any of a real difference other then possibly performance increase

Nice to have Richard back doing tech reviews on games.

Thanks Rich for taking the time and giving us an awesome review.

Does this Analysis take the latest update for Series X/S? I have seen a big improvement in performance mode with a few loading stutters in the school.

Always a pleasure to hear Rich do these videos 👍

Such a well put together video. Can't wait for PC analysis

I guess the game runs better on PS5? I have both systems, debating buying this game, and for which system. Sounds the PlayStation is the way to go this time.

Rich showing why he is the "Mr Digital Foundry Himself"

I'm playing on a LGCX on PS5. Can anyone confirm when using 120hz with vrr do you get better visuals in HFR mode or Performace with frames uncapped? I'm getting less frames in performance with frames uncapped vs HFR mode which would lead one to belive it must have more textures in performance if the frames are lower than HFR when uncapped. I just can't have them side by side to compare so wondering of anyone has done this specific comparison as I just can't do less than 60 fps anymore but still want to maximize my textures and ambience if I can.

I only have Fidelity, Fidelity RT and Performance modes available, which console runs it best?

14:14-15:25 How come there is such a large difference in performance between PS5 and XSX? Is it the hardware or just poor optimization?

I have noticed a significant improvement in frame rate (performance mode on the XSX) after the recent patch. Not perfect but definitely better than at launch.

Why am I not able to access Balanced Mode? I have an xbox series x with a 120 hrz 4k tv with vrr and I only have the 3 basic graphics modes. I’ve tried turning on 120 hrz and still nothing. Anyone else having this issue?

It's nice to hear Rich doing a current gen game review again.

Rich graces us with an editorial connoisseur which is quite refreshing and strikingly different from the usual Digital Foundry's technical focused graphic and game element dissection and analysis. Amazing Review! Thank you!!!

Notice how he didn't show the PS5 load time to not damage xbox much more 😂

For those of us with 1080p / 30fps screens (just me probably!) is performance or fidelity mode better? Or doesn’t it matter since the screen is limiting it all anyway?

I'm still going to watch the analysis, but I saw in El Analista de Bits that in resolution and performance mode the consoles have unlocked modes (in Series S the 60 fps mode can be above 60 fps). Is this still the case? Other point. Are these results already with the patch that was released for the Xbox Series?

Well done Rich! This was awesome.

I don't care how you spin it, more settings on consoles games is an ABSOLUTE POSITIVE. Give users control over what they find important. The more settings the better. It doesn't matter how "confusing" it might seem, it's 100% a move in the correct direction.

So what graphics mode do y'all prefer? I've been playing fidelity + RT uncapped framerate and I think it mostly looks good besides the few frame drops when outside. Anybody got better suggestions?

Do you guys think they’ll fix the stuttering on Xbox Series x?

I liked Fidelity with RT at first on the Series X but after trying it on High Performance Mode, I couldn’t go back. I noticed a lot of the reflections were still present on HPM and navigating through Hogwarts felt sooooo smooth. Omg it’s such a difference. I also noticed that this game has a lot of “haze” in the environments. Even on my OLED tv, I can see it. Can only imagine how bad it is on a LED

Awesome DF review/analysis. Looking forward to the analysis of the PC version.

For anyone playing this with the duel sense, how does it feel?

great content as always!

very glad you guys covered this.

I've been waiting for this one, thanks for the coverage Rich!

Why use FSR 1 instead of fsr 2.1 ?

Excellent review, Rich! Great to hear from you! :D

I wonder if those animated paintings are causing some of these issues. Practically every wall has them and the engine has to essentially play multiple (sometimes like 10 or more) video files on top of everything else. Performance seems much better in areas away from buildings that contain these paintings like caves and the forest.

It is amazing that they are planning to release this title on Nintendo Switch. I mean, this title can give XSX heavy frame drops, and yet, they are crazy enough to think about a Switch release.

I must of missed it but what was DF favoured mode to use then on the consoles, particularly the PS5?

Awesome review Rich! Good to see you back!

I have definitely noticed the shadow issues generated by the Ambient Occlusion. Once I noticed it, I can't un-notice it.

Expertly crafted video by Rich. Great Job

What's the common resolution on balanced mode for the Series S?

I was waiting for this one! Loved it thanks! :D

Thanks guys! Any chance you'll talk about PC and Steam Deck?

So we're never going to get a pc analysis ? It was the most important one because that's where there are most of the problems...

HDR appraisal? Does the game support HDR system calibration on console?

Great review, thanks!

Incredible work Rich!

I wonder how long those door opening loading circles are on last gen and the Switch :D While they never take that long they can sometimes be annoying in Hogwarts.

Glad you guys covered this!

Recommended setting on XSX with 120hz VRR Samsung? Fidelity RT Uncapped? What is the VRR window? Does it meet it? Thanks!