Topic: Astro's Playroom > Matrix tech demo

i decided to re-install and play it since i skipped it when i got my ps5 & turned off all the gimmicks on the ps5 controller . long story short i played it with the dualsense features enabled & its reeally good . i wasn't impressed by the matrix tech demo , but was surprised with astro playroom , is it even a tech demo ? it probably has to do with the presentation of the game & that there's more interaction/gameplay , either way its really good . idk if its next gen or not either but its really good at convincing you it is too.

You do realise the whole point of astro is to showcase the 'gimmicks' of the dualsense?

@MatthewJP whats the point of the matrix demo , isnt that showcasing something too . i think astro playroom was more surprising

@nomither6 It's a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5. And also a marketing tool for the new Matrix film.

Well they showcase different things. I initially thought the beginning of the Matrix demo was just using a scene from the original film. Turns out it was running in engine.

Astro, while being built around the controller functions, is just a very fun little game! In that regard it’s definitely better than The Matrix Awakens

The matrix demo is showcasing the new unreal engine. Were you not impressed by the open world section? The amount of traffic, reflections, lack of pop-in?

@JohnnyShoulder i know , i was being rhetorical .

@MatthewJP i'll give it another chance . my initial playthrough of it was just ''meh'' , but ill try it again to see what im overlooking , if its really as impressive as people say it is .

One’s a game. One’s a tech demo.

@Kidfried i thought i was the only one !

Astro's Playroom was built as a tech showcase and 'demo' for the new Dual Sense features. Its built as a 'game' first and foremost and also built specifically for the Playstation.

The Matrix was built as a advert and tech demo of the Unreal Engine, merging actual 'film' assets with an ultra realistic graphical presentation with unbelievable lighting, physics and AI on display - as well as incredible LoD management. Built in relatively short time considering it was built from scratch and ported to consoles and the size of the map and details/objects in it. You can't tell what is actual 'film' footage and which are being rendered in Real-time.

Astro looks great, but very 'gamey' and nothing really that wouldn't run on a PS4 for the most part. Yes its 'pretty' etc and it would feel very different to play without the Haptic Feedback but its not pushing the 'next gen' visual features at all...

There is no way the Matrix could run on a PS4. Certain aspects 'maybe' but even the on-rails section, with all those Physics simulations as cars crash, bits explode etc and of course with RT and even the shadows are reflected (which Spider-Man doesn't do). It maybe on rails, but its not 'scripted' or 'pre-rendered'. Walking/flying/driving around after the 'end' also gives us an impressive city to explore that is much more realistic looking than anything before. https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/the-matrix-is-unreal/ makes for very interesting reading too if you are interested in some more information about the tech demo

Granted its not as 'fun' to play and the performance too makes it feel a bit rough as well. However, considering the 'time' spent on this, the amount of time spent to 'optimise' the experience for each platform before launch, its a remarkable tech demo. It makes me very optimistic for the future when actual Game Developers create 'games' in UE5. They will no doubt have more time, experience and knowledge of the Engine to create actual 'games'.

Its not about which is the best 'game' to play as that isn't the point. Astro's Playroom was designed as a game first and foremost but also built to showcase and demo the new features. It wouldn't be much fun if they hadn't expanded the levels into a more 'complete' game than just to 'demo' each new feature. It doesn't require you to experience the feedback of pulling a spring 100's of times, collecting all the pieces, coins etc to 'demo' and show off the technology so its much more of a 'game'.

What the Matrix is doing is literally showcasing the Engine and its feature set in a tech demo. That's why you get to switch between different views to see what Nanite or Lumen do, what the AI or physics can do, how an 'open world' constructed with billions and billions of Polygons can look with their Nanite handling LoDs all while AI is controlling traffic, pedestrians etc too. Its not a 'game' but a tech demo to show UE5 running on the Consoles for everyone to experience. So far, we only have 'video' of demo's (Lumen in the Land of Nanite for example) that were shown off running on Console, but that's not the same as seeing these running natively in your own home. Its designed more for potential developers to show them what could be possible on Console and to make gamers excited for UE5 games so for the 'average' gamer, Astro is going to be a lot more 'fun'. I don't get excited about on-rails game-play where the 'game-play' is boring but the quality of the physics, lighting etc and LoD management everywhere is.

Two very different 'demo's' with different audiences and objectives in mind. Astro was meant to be a fun platforming game first and foremost for any age to introduce them to the PS5 and DS5. Matrix was a demo to show some of the features of UE5 running on Console hardware and 'interactive' to show it is running in 'real-time' on that hardware. Its part advert too for the new film as well of course. But its purpose is to 'sell' devs on using UE5 for their 'next gen' project...

@BAMozzy i plan on replaying it today to give it a second chance . contrary to my initial post , i prefer realistic graphics and realism or semi-realism over cartoony graphics ANY day . astro’s presentation was just extremely well-done and that’s what captivated me .

‘ppreciate your detailed posts , i’ll take it into consideration when i play it again tonight .

@nomither6 I wasn't referring to the cartoony look of Astro's Playroom either but what the demo represents for the next gen 'future' of gaming and 'running' on PS5/Series S/X consoles.

From a technical perspective, what Astro offered visually isn't a generational leap over the PS4 era - yes its 'prettier' in 4k but nothing 'ground breaking'. Its generational leap is more in the haptic feedback and possibly the audio too if you played on headphones but the game itself wasn't a technical 'leap' over what came before. As pretty as games like Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War etc are, they look like 'games' - especially in motion when you can see the edge where the next level of detail or quality mode cuts in if you look for it.

As this is a game Engine demo running on these consoles, its a demonstration of the amount of detail you can have, high quality assets for miles but being managed in engine - no more making several different LoD models. Real Time Global Illumination - no more fake/bake lighting which takes a lot of developer time, Real Time hardware accelerated RT also enables really good reflections too and everything looks so on a different level and its running like that in 'real time' on this hardware.

That's why its really different. Astro was built firstly and foremost as a 'game' and so the first time you play your PS5 and experience the 'feel' of the haptics, maybe the Audio too all wrapped up in shiny 4k visuals, its a great introduction to what games may 'feel' like to play and its exciting for gamers.

The Matrix is part Film Advert and part UE5 advert/demo. Its more of an interactive experience which isn't really exciting from a game-play perspective but shows off the potential of the engine as its running in real time on that hardware - all rendered despite the free choice of where to shoot and having to calculate the bullets, the explosions the lighting, the level of detail etc. Then at the end, you get a perfectly playable open world city that you can freely explore - really boring as there isn't really any 'game' to it but imagine what a game developer could do in that world - maybe even a Matrix game with Bullet time, maybe flying through the city (try fly mode in the demo) with all those AI and potential streaming issue open world games pose running in real time...

Astro demo's what Playstation built into the hardware but not really what the potential next generation of game engines running on that hardware could be. So far, we've seen last gen engines with the settings dialed up more to take advantage of the extra CPU/GPU/RAM they have. What the Matrix represents is what the 'next' gen of game engines, with next gen 'extremely high quality' geometry and character models and LoD management, streaming those high quality, data heavy assets at speed as you fly across 'big open worlds', all with Real Time lighting, shadows, reflections etc and great physics, AI, etc to take full advantage of the next gen GPU's, and therefore the next gen of 'games' built on them can look like - maybe better if its designed and built specifically as a Game with proper optimisation, further improvements via updates and shared user knowledge, experience etc. So its not really meant to impress from a game-play perspective but to sell you on the next Matrix movie and maybe inspire you to create a game in UE5....

I personally don't see the difference. Astro's Playroom also has a ton of details rendered at a high quality, there's always a lot going on screen. The game also runs at 60fps in 4K. Is that possible on the PS4? No.

The Matrix demo puts more processing power into aesthetics, but runs at 24/30fps in 1440+p. Can you do the same on PS4? No.

Then what defines a 'next gen experience'? The fact that you can slash the frame rate and resolution of Astro's Playroom and make it easier to translate to PS4 doesn't mean that it's any of a lesser experience. You can't really do that with the Matrix demo, because it's already running the bare minimum specs. That would mean that any games that favours pretty aesthetics over high framerate and resolution are more next gen than those who focus on easier scalable factors such as framerate and resolution. And if that means 30fps/1440p is the next gen experience, then it's not very exciting.

@Octane The difference is the way in which the games are built, the way they are 'lit' etc. Astro's Playroom is 'old school' like pretty much most of the games you have played as most games are cross generation and so are going to built a 'certain' way and then settings are 'tweaked' depending on the raw GPU performance. If you have a PS5, having a more powerful GPU (up to 10.3TFlops) means that you get higher res and/or maybe some of the settings dialed up.

Yes its a prettier version and nothing wrong with that at all but its NOT really making use of the next gen features of the GPU - the Geometry Engine, Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing etc. Its much more like a PS4 Pro+ version of a Game - a higher res version.

You couldn't run the Matrix on a PS4 Pro, XB1X - both with GPU's more powerful than a Series S that can run this. Without Hardware Accelerated RT, there is NO lighting, no shadows, no Ambient Occlusion, no reflections etc etc. Its all real-time so you can't just turn the 'resolution' down and expect it to look right.

It transforms the way Games are Built as devs don't have to make different Quality Assets to 'pop-in' at different distances, just make the highest quality Geometry model and the 'engine' will scale it accordingly. In games, a building for example could be a 2D placard with a texture at distance but with Nannite, its all geometry. They don't have to run simulations of Real Time Lighting and then try and fake that, don't have to make Shadow Maps, Cube Maps etc to fake the look of shadows, reflections etc - its all done in real time by Ray Tracing.

I'm not saying that 'old' methods of making games weren't 'great' looking. That's testament to the devs and years and years of developing games and 'faking' real-time lighting because real-time lighting is incredibly expensive to do. Toy Story took between 45minutes and 30hours per frame to render with all the ray-traced lighting to ensure that it looked right and we are right now at the point where the Consoles can do Real Time lighting in a 'game' in tiny fractions of a second.

There is 'nothing' fundamentally wrong with fake lighting in games to create the illusion of real lighting, using SSR and/or Cube Map reflections etc and devs have done a great job of building 'believable' worlds to play in with some very impressive 'views'. No one can say Uncharted 4 or Ghost of Tsushima for example look anything less than stunning and I bet with the res boosted from 1440p to 4k, it will look even better - especially in stills. From a 'gamers' perspective, we don't really see the 'flaws' (I'll say 'flaws' because these are the Flaws/limitations of the 'techniques' used not the flaws of the dev team) as you're too engrossed in the action, story etc. But stop for a second and look around, notice how shadows in the distance look wrong or how Screen Space Reflections have parts 'missing' due to being off screen but should still be in the reflection, how a cube map reflection doesn't properly align with the world, how at a certain point in the distance, you can see a transition between 'lower/higher' quality assets, settings etc.

Watch the video to Forspoken, particularly when travelling across the world, you can clearly see the 'detail' pop-in a few metres ahead of the character. It's obviously not using Mesh Shading or equivalent.

Resolution isn't the 'most important' aspect of a Game. On PS4 Pro, games like God of War and Horizon: Zero Dawn ran at 1920x2160p - that's '50%' of 4k but used Chequerboard rendering to deliver a 4k-ish presentation. Returnal is 1080p on PS5 at 60fps. As I said, Uncharted 4 ran at 1440/30 on PS4 Pro and looked 'incredible' too. PS5 has proven that it can take games built on the 'old' engines and run those games at 4k/60 but that's 'old school' way of making games dialled up to Max to take advantage of the 'raw' difference in hardware. That's the difference 1.84TF vs 4.2TF vs 10.3TF only but the next consoles have more to offer than just 'RAW' specs - like Hardware Accelerated RT etc.

What the Matrix demonstrates is what the 'next-generation' of games built specifically for 'next-gen' hardware can offer utilising next generation features built into the hardware that OLD generation hardware does not. This Demo may well be around 1440p and upto 30fps, but it wasn't really designed and built as a 'game' and not as optimised or efficient as it could be. Like I said, even if you could get the 'geometry' to run on last gen,there would be no 'lighting' in the game at all, no shadows, ambient occlusion etc because the devs haven't spent time 'faking' it - its all 'real-time'.

This is getting closer to that pre-rendered CGI look in real-time. Things that should take Hours to render being 'managed' in engine to render in ms. The 'highest quality' assets being used with the highest level geometry for its 'size and distance' (no point having a 7000k polygon building if its only taking up a few hundred Pixels) and all the lighting being done in fractions of a second in real time. Strip lighting is a 'problem' for devs because they can't make the strip an emissive light source. Its not emitting 'light'. to make it seem like its emitting light, they have to put point lights in to simulate the effect, maybe bake in some fake 'light/shadows' effects etc but with this, they can make the strip as an emissive light source and that light is lighting the scene in real-time.

The difference is that what you see on PS4 or older, as well as a lot of games at the start of this generation, is 'faked', an illusion of what the world should look like IF the lighting was actually a 'real' light source. Its the difference between a real fire which emits 'light' and a picture of a Fire. We can simulate what some glowing metal or embers looks like using 'colour' to simulate the red/orange to white 'glow' but unless you 'fake' the way that 'glow' illuminates everything around it too, it won't look 'right'. The orange/red light sending out light that bounces around the room and off objects. To make a Red lightsabre look like its 'glowing' so brightly, they make it white with a 'red' tint around the edge instead of making it a 'very' bright (and by bright, I mean in terms of actual emissive 'light' (like 10k nits for example) not in terms of 'shade' like bright red vs dark red) light source. Its 'white' on cameras, in pictures etc because the light is so intense its over-exposed and devs simulate that 'look' but now the engine can do real time lighting so they can make that Lightsabre an emissive light source and that lightsabres glow is actually bouncing around the room and Lighting the scene, casting real shadows etc...

Astro, as pretty as it is, is still an old school way of making games and how the world is lit. As pretty as it is, you could drop the resolution and/or tweak a few settings and it would run on PS4 because the way its built is no different. Its the same with games like Elden Ring where the PS5 has higher visual settings, resolution and/or frame rates with 'faster' loading because the Engine and way the game is built is only using the faster hardware specs to boost those elements. Nothing wrong with that at all, but what the UE5 demo represents is what can be possible if you focus on next gen hardware only to build your games with next-gen engines. You don't have to worry about making lots of different quality Assets for different distances away, don't have to run Real Time Lighting Simulations to see what the 'game' should look like and then spend months trying to 'fake' it, don't have to worry about polygon budgets, reflective surfaces (and how to do 'refections' - SSR or make Cube Maps for every thing, don't have to worry about making 'textures' of geometry with baked in shadows giving the 'illusion' of actual geometry with depth, don't have to worry about where they need point lights or shadow cascades, shadow maps, what Ambient Occlusion is doing etc because all that lighting is handled in real-time because the 'next-gen' hardware can use Hardware Acceleration to seriously cut down on the time it takes to do this.

As I tried to point out, The Matrix represents the 'next' generation of gaming engines designed to take the way games have been traditionally built and illuminated to the next level. Astro's Playroom is designed to showcase what the 'raw' specs of the PS5 and the DS5 can do. Its not that different from all those PS4 games with PS5 boosts to improve resolution, frame rate etc as they are all built in that 'traditional' way with traditional methods of lighting etc.

Maybe you don't care too much, which is fair enough - the 'end' experience matters more than whether its using traditional methods or not. However, this represents the future, the entire way game developers can now create their games and get closer to the type of realism that pre-rendered CGI offers in real time, the workload etc - spend more time on creating the 'game' not making 5 different versions of every asset, creating and using textures to create the illusion of geometry, spend hows running real time simulations of light bouncing around and then trying to recreate that look in game with baked shadows, point lighting etc...

I am not saying the traditional method looks bad by any stretch of the imagination but that its got its 'limitations' and issues and requires a LOT of extra developer time to create the 'look' of real time lighting etc. The 'next-gen' method may well be much more expensive and require 'next gen' designed Hardware with Hardware Accelerated RT for example to work but that is a massive leap to the way games are built, rendered etc. We all wanted to know what games built for next gen hardware only, games that regardless of resolution just wouldn't be possible on PS4/XB1 era hardware just couldn't do that take full advantages of the 'hardware' features built in to hardware. This is the 'first' example and more will come - and probably much better performing too as they will optimise the design and build specifically for 'gaming' - not for an interactive showcase/advert designed around a film. UE5 is still also relatively 'early' in its development and until recently, wasn't using Hardware acceleration for RT for example so as more and more devs work with it, we will see updates, optimisations etc that make it easier to get more and more out of it on fixed spec hardware.