@wildcat_kickz I’ll answer all the inside baseball questions you have when I’m on PSN with you haha. Saying too much here only results in people then jumping in and arguing only to be proven wrong upon release and meaning the entire argument was moot. You know, internet stuff! 😂

So, older game, let’s take Horizon as an example to match the article, but, its entire codebase and engine is geared towards producing a result 60 times a second that depends on the architecture of the PS5.

So the draw calls (when the CPU and GPU as each other and RAM for packets of information), then need to be sent at the right time, in the right order and a result is expected to always match.

Like what is happening in say the Switch 2 world when it released, it uses sort of an emulation layer to render and run the code of the Switch 1 games, this meant Mario Maker (some levels created by the public), ran at different timings to what was expected (faster), so essentially the timings of features on the Mario level, or the triggered events all played out at an odd timing ratio.

With consoles, much like PS4 to 5, the issue becomes an engine is expecting to ask hardware for things, and then in return get things it expects back.

With PC it’s sort of similar but gets way too complicated to explain here.

So because the handheld is newer hardware that the engine of Horizon isn’t expecting, it will get results it doesn’t expect. This is as simple as patching the engine/code. However, even if everything is understood, so the language of the hardware and software, the hardware won’t react in the same way.

It means this handheld is powerful, but running with lower power delivery. Which creates unexpected results. So take a car, fast car, say a Corvette, you could get to the end of Route 66 in it really fast, slow, or somewhere in between. Now either way, you’ll get to the end, but ideally for tire wear, petrol consumption and so on you’ll want to get there without pushing it too much or too little constantly.

Now a much older Corvette could do the same trip, but its energy consumption getting there will likely be more (older engine and uses more oil, petrol etc). So you the driver (Dev) would need to make adjustments to how you drive (code).

The games won’t need scaling back due to it being weak as such, more a case of to get the same result you’d expect playing Horizon 60 times a second, there needs to be tweaks taking place to calm down what is being processed. Otherwise you burn through petrol/gas/diesel/hydrogen/electric etc.

Same when you load Horizon on a PC actually, the energy usage, result on screen and all manner of things is going to vary wildly and be all manner of different.

Think of the handheld as Xbox Series S to the PS6. Able to display much of the same, but at a lower everything due to having a screen where you’d have to freeze each frame to even notice in most parts.

I’ll explain more on PSN in a lot clearer way haha.