Digital Foundry Analyzes GTA 6’s Second Trailer

Yesterday, 04:15
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Digital Foundry, a YouTube channel known for its in-depth technical analysis of video games, has released a breakdown of the second GTA 6 trailer. Unsurprisingly, the trailer has made waves online, amassing over 80 million views on YouTube.

Here’s a summary of the key takeaways from Digital Foundry’s technical experts:

  • The frame rate is likely capped at 30 FPS, with no 60 FPS mode expected. Global illumination (RTGI) and reflections are deeply integrated into the game’s visual style and can’t be separated from it.
  • The current build runs at 1152p using FSR1 upscaling (with a probable switch to FSR2 or PSSR in the future). Some issues with hair rendering are noticeable.
  • The entire lighting system is based on RTGI, with no rasterized lighting. Shadows are filtered rather than ray-traced, similar to Red Dead Redemption 2. Ray-traced shadows might appear on PC or PS5 Pro.
  • Ray-traced reflections can be seen on rivers and small bodies of water.
  • Screen space reflections (SSR) are used on larger water surfaces, glass, plastic, and similar materials.
  • Vehicle reflections look particularly impressive.
  • RTGI provides realistic lighting for characters inside vehicles.
  • Environmental detail is very high, with bottles standing out as a notable example.
  • Running GTA 6 on devices like the Switch 2 or Steam Deck is out of the question—these platforms simply aren’t powerful enough.
  • Hair is rendered with a new strand-based system, offering excellent quality but requiring significant resources and dynamic optimization.
  • Hair and clothing movement are animated separately, and sweat rendering is visible on character models, greatly enhancing realism.

You can check out our own breakdown of GTA 6’s second trailer here.

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