The Callisto Protocol - Digital Foundry Tech Review

[watermelon123]

We've been eagerly anticipating this one - and on PlayStation 5 at least, we're getting a simply brilliant game and a proper technical showcase. That's the bulk of our coverage in this tech review - but there's clearly something amiss with the Xbox Series port, while the stuttering problems on the day one PC experience are unbelievably bad. Note: At 21:35, the label under PlayStation 5 should read Quality, not Performance. Apologies for the typo.

Spoiler: Summary

• made with UE4.27, the final version of the engine
• lots of performance and motion capture
• highly fidelity character rendering
  • in-game model is nearly as detailed as cinematics
• environments are equally high quality
• high quality motion blur, recommended to keep on
• deformable snow and volumetric fog
• most lights cast a dynamic shadow in quality mode
• animation is exceptional
• quality mode use RT reflections and hybrid RT shadows, and ray traced transmission
  • reflections are used on rough surfaces, which is pretty expensive
  • gloriously reflective toilets
  • lots of reflective surfaces in the game
  • lots of shadow casters
  • custom work done to UE4
  • RT shadows can dramatically change the mood of the game
• PS5/Series X
  • quality and performance mode
  • volumetrics are lower res in performance
  • 1440p-1728p
• Series s
  • not mode options
  • no RT
  • 1080p
  • lower res textures and no subsurface scattering
  • has some bugs
• Series X has broken RT reflections and broken fog
  • DF sent this to the team
• performance mode
  • some inconsistencies, but largely stable, especially with vrr
  • some scenes can drop to the 50s, might be cpu related
• quality mode
  • series x has lots of drops, devs say a day zero patch would fix this
    • some areas still have drops
  • ps5 is more stable, doesn't have too many drops
  • all platforms has some loading drops
• series s is a fairly stable save for some loading drops
• PC
  • #stutterstruggle, no pre-compile option
  • 400ms stutter on an i9 13-series, 700ms stutter on 3600
  • in-game, you can't change settings other than resolution
  • very cpu limited, poor utilization
    • RT drops frame rate by 50% but cpu utilization is very low on a 3600
• loading
  • loading a save is ~5s
• SDR
  • three settings, use srgb if on an OLED
• audio quality is superb
• great positional audio for surround sound

 

[Paul Phoenix]

I briefly seen some gameplay. It looks decent.

It actually looks like a Dead Space game. So I guess it's kind of meant to be a spiritual successor.