Despite the truth that SSDs have been round for completely yonks for us PC folks, you could have seen that one of many large speaking factors about Sony and Microsoft’s upcoming console bins is how the transition from historical inner HDDs to an SSD goes to revolutionise, nay, fully eradicate loading screens. Indeed, in accordance with Epic’s Tim Sweeney, “The world of loading screens is over,” as he proclaimed in in the present day’s Unreal Engine 5 demo operating on a PS5. If that’s the case, although, Tim, then why is your not-Lara Croft demo woman nonetheless squeezing herself by a bunch of rocks so it could possibly load in all these billions of triangles you retain nattering on about?
Honestly, the one factor I hate most about current ‘hidden’ loading screens in the present day is all that gradual crawling by tight passageways. The largest culprits are third-person motion games. Tomb Raider does it quite a bit, as does Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Final Fantasy VII Remake to call just some. Honestly, the period of time Cloud spends inching his means by the rubble of the Midgar slums or squeezing himself in between a fence and a parked Shinra van is mind-boggling, and I’ve little doubt that the eventual and inevitable PC model of VII’s shiny reimagining will do it too.
Sure, it beats observing a black display with a revolving brand within the nook like the times of yore, however the result’s precisely the identical. The tempo slows to a crawl, you want whoever it’s you’re controlling would shimmy themselves ahead simply that little bit sooner, and also you breathe a sigh of aid when it’s lastly over. They might look extra immersive by conserving you ‘in the moment’, so to talk, however I believe they do the precise reverse.
As a end result, when everybody began banging on about how nice it was to lastly have an SSD at their disposal, I believed, “Brilliant, if this new console generation achieves anything at all, let it be the death of all those duff wall squeezes.”
Alas, it appears to be like like I’ll have to attend a bit bit longer earlier than I get my want, as even Epic’s shiny new Unreal Engine 5 demo operating on a PS5 nonetheless concerned a deathly dose of rock hugging. Sure, stated rocks regarded mighty nice as not-Lara Croft gingerly eased herself by its digital 8K cinema-grade textures, and it’s in all probability so the demo can keep on loading in all these trillions of splendidly rendered triangles they made a giant track and dance about – which, don’t get me mistaken, look completely gorgeous, however I’m nonetheless a mite dissatisfied all the identical.
Perhaps extra stunning is that I didn’t hear the phrases ‘ray tracing’ as soon as throughout yesterday’s demo. I stored anticipating somebody to say it, as a result of gosh darn it, that lighting is correct superb. But as confirmed by our buddies at Digital Foundry, whereas Unreal Engine 5 will assist {hardware} accelerated ray tracing, it wasn’t included as a part of this explicit tech showcase.
This additionally grinds one other one among my gears about this console era. Second to all of the SSD chat, it’s been ray tracing this and ray tracing that. But if games can look nearly as good as Epic’s Unreal 5 demo with none type of ray tracing in any way (certainly, Epic stated through the presentation that they’ll be making the important thing options obtainable throughout all present gen units and on cell as properly), then why the heck ought to PC folks really feel the necessity to spend money on a ray tracing-capable graphics card?
I’m greater than prepared to be confirmed mistaken on this – heck, I need to be confirmed mistaken on it – however proper now the world’s first little bit of gameplay operating in real-time on a PS5 hasn’t made me practically as excited concerning the potentialities of next-gen {hardware} as I believed I’d be. I need to see ray tracing turn out to be the norm. I would like the tip of loading screens for actual this time, and I need to be wowed. The degree of element is actually spectacular on this Unreal Engine 5 demo, however it’s going to must work quite a bit tougher to persuade me it’s price upgrading my PC for.
