Digital Foundry Direct Weekly DF Direct Weekly #255: Xbox's Big Helix Reveal, Witcher 4 Path Tracing, Crimson Desert Specs
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Mar 15, 2026 
John Linneman, Digital Foundry senior contributor known for deep technical analyses, shares hands-on impressions and testing notes for Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro. Discussion covers Microsoft’s new Helix reveal and what’s truly novel. They also tackle Witcher 4’s RTX Mega Geometry and path tracing news. Short takes on Intel’s Core 200 Ultra Plus and display hardware round out the chat.
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Console Modes Show Realistic Ray Tracing And Upscaling Choices
- Pearl Abyss provides specific console targets: PS5/Xbox Series modes with RT low/high and PS5 Pro using upgraded PSSR for 4K60 with RT.
- Series S targets 720p/1080p without ray tracing, showing realistic scaling choices per SKU.
RTX Mega Geometry Enables Accurate Distant Foliage For Path Tracing
- NVIDIA's RTX Mega Geometry and DXR 2.0 additions enable cluster-level BVH, instancing and opacity micromaps to make path-traced foliage accurate at distance.
- This allows PC path-tracing to use different distant-LOD geometry than console voxel LODs, improving indirect lighting accuracy for The Witcher 4.
DXR 2.0 Rapidly Standardises Mega Geometry But Support Will Vary
- DXR 2.0 absorbed many RTX Mega Geometry features quickly, suggesting faster standardisation than past DXR updates.
- Hardware and driver support will vary; older AMD RDNA2/3 GPUs may not receive full DXR2 support due to vendor resource trade-offs.