Photo: Nintendo
I'm perfectly aware that the PlayStation-exclusive Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has as much to do with Autoevolution as an electric motor on a 1969 Plymouth Road Runner instead of the 426 cubic-inch HEMI V8, but bear with me.
I promise that by the end, all of this will make more sense than a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 doing the standard 1/4-mile in less than 9 seconds. So, without any further ado, let's see what that good ol' friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, car graphics, Mario Kart, GTA 6, and the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 have in common.
First things first, let's discuss Spidey because it's all the rage. And even though you might take a hard pass on the game, maybe you have kids, nephews, whatever. The holiday season is creeping up, so it could make a great gift from "uncle of the year."
Spider-Man 2 in 2023 is nothing short of a fantastic gaming experience. It has its shortcomings, like when you're playing during dull childhood memories. However, given that those parts have a narrative purpose later in the game, they can be excused.
Everything else, from graphics to the moment-to-moment gameplay action, is superb. So, the answer is yes. Even though you might not be interested, it would make a great holiday gift. Remember, it's only on PS5, not PS4 or any other console.
Now, swinging back to our cobwebs, Spider-Man 2 has two major visual or graphical options: Performance and Fidelity. The former will run the game at 60 fps (frames-per-second) at a lower resolution, while the latter will do so at 30 fps with a higher visual fidelity.
If you have a cool VRR (variable refresh rate) monitor or TV, you can also turn on the 120hz option and play in Fidelity mode at 40fps. It might not sound evident with all those hertz and fps, but it's easier once you're in the options menu.
What's most important here is that while both modes have Ray Tracing on at all times, Performance tries to cheat with car reflections. It's all above board, but when you see the same scene in both visual modes, you'll notice that car materials like metallic paint, windows, or mirrors don't reflect the actual surroundings.
The game uses a technique called cube mapping to use fewer resources and trick the player into seeing pseudo-reflections. Fidelity, however, has ray tracing with no problems, and cars reflect their surroundings adequately.
Next, we have cars at a distance in both modes. After a certain distance from the character, automobiles turn into a flat 2D model to save resources. You can't tell unless you zoom in 300-400% and look for it, but that's happening nonetheless.
Now, how's the Switch 2 going to factor into all of this? First, according to Insider Gaming, it's supposedly built with an Nvidia chip instead of AMD. The PS5 and Xbox consoles use the latter. More importantly, it's also reportedly going to feature ray reconstruction. This Nvidia DLSS 3.5 feature barely hit the market last month in Cyberpunk 2077.
This is groundbreaking, especially for racing games, because we could get incredibly advanced titles from PC and current-gen consoles that would have never worked on a handheld like the Switch 2. In case anyone was wondering why DLSS is such a big deal, well, it can add 20-30 fps to your game at 4K resolution. It's the best upscaling software in the business.
Imagine playing Forza Motorsport with ray tracing on the go. Or open-world games like Forza Horizon 5, The Crew Motorfest, and NFS Unbound at high/ultra settings, at 60 fps, 1080p, whenever you'd want. This would be incredible for sims and arcade driving titles, not only because of ray tracing but also for particle effects.
EA SPORTS WRC is coming up in November with great-looking rain and mud effects. Now, imagine the power of Spidey's Fidelity Mode in games like Mario Kart 9 with full ray tracing technology. The possibilities could be endless. Especially with GTA 6 on the horizon...
First things first, let's discuss Spidey because it's all the rage. And even though you might take a hard pass on the game, maybe you have kids, nephews, whatever. The holiday season is creeping up, so it could make a great gift from "uncle of the year."
Spider-Man 2 in 2023 is nothing short of a fantastic gaming experience. It has its shortcomings, like when you're playing during dull childhood memories. However, given that those parts have a narrative purpose later in the game, they can be excused.
Everything else, from graphics to the moment-to-moment gameplay action, is superb. So, the answer is yes. Even though you might not be interested, it would make a great holiday gift. Remember, it's only on PS5, not PS4 or any other console.
Now, swinging back to our cobwebs, Spider-Man 2 has two major visual or graphical options: Performance and Fidelity. The former will run the game at 60 fps (frames-per-second) at a lower resolution, while the latter will do so at 30 fps with a higher visual fidelity.
If you have a cool VRR (variable refresh rate) monitor or TV, you can also turn on the 120hz option and play in Fidelity mode at 40fps. It might not sound evident with all those hertz and fps, but it's easier once you're in the options menu.
What's most important here is that while both modes have Ray Tracing on at all times, Performance tries to cheat with car reflections. It's all above board, but when you see the same scene in both visual modes, you'll notice that car materials like metallic paint, windows, or mirrors don't reflect the actual surroundings.
The game uses a technique called cube mapping to use fewer resources and trick the player into seeing pseudo-reflections. Fidelity, however, has ray tracing with no problems, and cars reflect their surroundings adequately.
Next, we have cars at a distance in both modes. After a certain distance from the character, automobiles turn into a flat 2D model to save resources. You can't tell unless you zoom in 300-400% and look for it, but that's happening nonetheless.
Now, how's the Switch 2 going to factor into all of this? First, according to Insider Gaming, it's supposedly built with an Nvidia chip instead of AMD. The PS5 and Xbox consoles use the latter. More importantly, it's also reportedly going to feature ray reconstruction. This Nvidia DLSS 3.5 feature barely hit the market last month in Cyberpunk 2077.
This is groundbreaking, especially for racing games, because we could get incredibly advanced titles from PC and current-gen consoles that would have never worked on a handheld like the Switch 2. In case anyone was wondering why DLSS is such a big deal, well, it can add 20-30 fps to your game at 4K resolution. It's the best upscaling software in the business.
Imagine playing Forza Motorsport with ray tracing on the go. Or open-world games like Forza Horizon 5, The Crew Motorfest, and NFS Unbound at high/ultra settings, at 60 fps, 1080p, whenever you'd want. This would be incredible for sims and arcade driving titles, not only because of ray tracing but also for particle effects.
EA SPORTS WRC is coming up in November with great-looking rain and mud effects. Now, imagine the power of Spidey's Fidelity Mode in games like Mario Kart 9 with full ray tracing technology. The possibilities could be endless. Especially with GTA 6 on the horizon...
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