DF Direct Weekly #288: Phantom Blade Zero PC Tested, FSR 4.1 Handheld, Switch 2 Lite?

DF Direct Weekly #288 — Summary

Phantom Blade Zero PC Performance

• Rich tested the Unreal Engine 5 game on a Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 4060. At 1440p with high settings and DLSS, performance was generally above 60 fps, with no notable stuttering in the tested areas. Shader compilation was exceptionally long—around 20–25 minutes in Rich’s experience.
• Frame generation substantially increased frame rates, but latency results suggested NVIDIA Reflex might not be active unless frame generation is enabled. The team said a clear Reflex option would be preferable.
• Testing on an RTX 5070 found ray tracing costly: performance fell from about 120 fps with RT off to around 75 fps with RT on. Path tracing reduced it further, to roughly 66 fps before frame generation. With 2× frame generation, path tracing generally ran above 100 fps, though traversal-related stutters remained.
• The game’s RT settings appear to change more than the expected switch between software and hardware Lumen. Shadows and reflections behave differently, and the team was unsure exactly which effects are being enabled.
• Rich criticized the default 85% output-resolution setting, which can add an unnecessary scaling step. The team recommended setting output resolution to 100% and using DLSS or another upscaler instead.
• Overall, the PC version ran well on the tested hardware, but the team noted stuttering and unusual graphics-setting behavior. Oliver also cautioned that motion blur and YouTube compression can make the game look less clear in video than it does in play.

Apple Hardware Announcements

Oliver discussed a touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro with a tandem OLED panel, 120 Hz refresh rate, and roughly 2,000-nit brightness. He viewed the display as an improvement over the existing mini-LED model, particularly for per-pixel luminance control and motion response, but not a complete upgrade in every respect. The touchscreen version reportedly costs more, while the mini-LED model remains available.

The panel’s touch support divided the speakers. They questioned its practical usefulness on a laptop, especially given fingerprints and the lack of a clear stylus-oriented use case.

Oliver criticized the new iPad mini’s 60 Hz OLED display, arguing that it is a poor fit for a premium tablet at its stated price. The others agreed that 120 Hz would better suit a device used heavily for scrolling and touch interaction. Other announced or recently refreshed Apple products, including Macs and iPads, were also briefly mentioned.

Switch 2 Lite Speculation and Battery Revisions

• A rumored Samsung 8nm-class process was discussed as a possible basis for a future Switch 2 revision or Lite model. The speakers stressed that the story was speculation, not evidence that Nintendo is making a Lite.
• The process was described as offering up to 12% higher performance or 15% lower power consumption, with an 8% smaller logic area than its predecessor. Whether the Switch 2’s processor could be transferred to it without substantial redesign was unclear. The team suggested a more advanced process might offer a larger efficiency benefit.
• The speakers said a display upgrade would be more welcome than a modest chip revision, and raised concerns about the Switch 2’s current screen blur and ghosting.
• John praised a revised European Switch model with a more easily replaceable battery, accessible after removing fewer screws. He expected future models to adopt the design, though availability was not yet widespread.

FSR 4.1 Tested on a Handheld

Rich tested AMD’s handheld-oriented FSR 4.1 on a ROG Ally X at 25 W, comparing it with native rendering and FSR 3.1.5.

• In Resident Evil Requiem, FSR 4.1 delivered an average performance increase of about 35% over native 1080p in the test. Its quality mode still offered roughly a 19% gain.
• FSR 4.1 performance mode reconstructed a cleaner image than FSR 3 quality mode, despite starting at 540p rather than 720p for a 1080p output. The team highlighted better handling of fine detail, motion, and newly revealed scene detail, with less breakup and visual “crunch.”
• In Crimson Desert, performance gains ranged from roughly 25% in quality mode to about 41% in performance mode, although the game remained below 30 fps in the tested scenario.

Oliver said the results suggested FSR 4.1 could provide much better image quality without the performance penalty normally associated with a major upscaler improvement. The team noted that support for older Z1 Extreme handhelds was missing at the time of testing.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on PS5 Pro

John reported that the PS5 Pro version appears to render at 1080p, while the base PS5 and Xbox demo produce a much sharper image that looks like 4K.

The lower-resolution Pro image is especially noticeable in the game’s detailed 2D art. John argued that this appears to be a bug rather than an intentional choice and called for a fix. The team had not seen evidence that the base PS5 version suffered performance problems that would explain the difference.

Ten Years of PS4 Pro and Digital Foundry’s Supporter Program

The team looked back at the PS4 Pro’s 2016 launch. They discussed its 4K focus, checkerboard rendering, early HDR support, and $399 price, while noting that its CPU was largely unchanged from the base PS4.

That CPU limitation could prevent games from reaching 60 fps, while some Pro versions raised resolution enough to cause performance drops. The speakers also recalled a compatibility issue between the PS4 Pro and the original PSVR processing unit.

The discussion covered how the PS4 Pro helped make temporal reconstruction techniques more prominent and compared its approach with the more powerful, more expensive Xbox One X.

Digital Foundry also marked ten years of its supporter program, which helped fund the business and enabled high-quality video downloads when YouTube’s 4K quality was limited.

Reviews and Other Coverage Mentioned

Digital Foundry’s website had reviewed the CRKD Nitro Deck 2 handheld controller for Switch 2, the Logitech Pro X2 Rapid esports keyboard, and the Corsair Sabre V3 Pro mouse. A review of the Acer Predator Atlas laptop using Intel’s G3 Extreme chip was also mentioned as forthcoming.

No step-by-step guides or tutorials were highlighted in the subtitles; the main coverage was technical testing, product analysis, and a retrospective.

Sponsor Segment

The episode included a sponsored feature on the Alienware AW3926QW: a 39-inch 5120×2160 tandem OLED ultrawide with a native 165 Hz mode, a 2560×1080 mode up to 330 Hz, HDR10 and Dolby Vision support, and HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1, and USB-C connectivity.

Main Speakers and Sources

Rich Leadbetter (host and hardware testing), Oliver Mackenzie (Apple and graphics analysis), and John Linneman (game and console analysis) were the main speakers. Digital Foundry website reviews and an Alienware-sponsored product segment were also referenced.