Right again?
So, I was saying before that I felt like the spec differences between the Xbox One and PS4 couldn't possibly account for the performance differences being reported. The 1080p vs. 720p debates and the 60fps vs. 30fps. Since either of those metrics would imply the PS4 was 2x faster the Xbox One and not even in your most wild interpretations of the hardware could you possibly arrive at a chasm that wide between the two.
Among my arguments was the theory that the PS4 was just barely able to attain those numbers, and so even a small variation in performance on the part of the Xbox One may have been enough to prefer an easy adjustment such as lowering the native resolution or the fixed FPS to make the gameplay more consistent.
And boy was I ever right. At least if the info from Tomb Raider is any indication. In fact, it is worse for Sony than I had anticipated from this.
Watch the video in that link.
The PS4 is NOT stable at 60fps. Nowhere near it. It actually spends most of the game hovering around the 45fps, which is a lot closer to the some of the real world differences between the 2 consoles on paper. At one point, about 75-80% into the video, the PS4 actually drops as low as 32fps, in a scene where the Xbox One is still holding a stable 30fps.
Which is pretty crazy when you think about it. Not only is it not stable at 60fps, but at times it can drop as low (and perhaps lower) than just 2fps above the hard cap imposed on the Xbox One.
By contrast, the Xbox One actually is stable at 30fps. Throughout the entire video it is rare to see anything but a straight green line at the 30fps mark for the Xbox One, and when it does waver, it corrects quickly.
The PS4 ONLY attains a stable 60fps for any measurable length of time in 2 scenes when there is virtually nothing happening on the screen. Add any movement or additional characters and the fps drops. Based on that video, even if the PS4 had been capped at 45fps, it wouldn't have been as stable as the Xbox One is at 30.
So, saying that this title runs at 60fps on the PS4 is a lie. Saying it is CAPPED at 60fps is true. But irrelevant. They could cap a game at a trillion fps. That doesn't mean it will ever reach that or be stable there, just means that even if it could, it would never render faster.
Based on what I saw, at best, the PS4 version would be relatively stable at 45fps and the Xbox One is absolutely stable at 30fps.
Unfortunately, this doesn't give us a fair comparison. We know based on this that the PS4 version looks to rather be able to perform at 45fps. We simply don't know where the Xbox One version would have hit a similar wall. All we know is it is almost definitely higher than the 30fps it was capped at. Otherwise, that wee little green line would have been wobbling throughout the video.
What is confusing though is, seeing the Xbox One performance, why they simply didn't cap it at 60 fps as well. Since the PS4 certainly isn't able to deal that out consistently, why not cap it at 30 too? If the PS4 could maintain 60, or even maintain it most of the time, it would make sense to me. But since it can't, why not cap both at 60 or both at 30?
I believe I read elsewhere that both ports were handled by different studios. My guess is it is simply a difference in opinions. If they were both done by the same studio, based on these results I would imagine both would be capped the same. On the one hand, the studio that did the PS4 port seems to have preferred a 60fps cap because the system CAN render higher than 30fps. And the studio that did the Xbox One port likely felt that since it isn't stable at 60fps, but is at 30 that it made sense to cap it there which would have lessened load on GPU/memory/CPU to help ensure the whole game/system run smoothly.
I'm not saying I think the Xbox One would also have reached 45fps as stably as PS4. On paper, PS4 optimists peg the PS4 at about 50% faster than the Xbox One, and that would perfectly explain a difference between 30 and 45fps. But, given just how stable the Xbox One was at 30, it looks like it probably could have pulled off another 5-10fps no problem.
But that poses another problem... if, without the cap at 30, the XB1 could pull 35-40fps, that would mean the PS4 in this real world test is only 11-22% faster than XB1. And with 10% GPU dedicated to processing for Kinect, that means XB1 could really be a patch away from being between as little as 1-12% off the PS4 in real world performance numbers.
Either way, the claim that the PS4 is twice as powerful as the Xbox One took a pretty hard blow today. And that link proves that capped at 60fps is NOT the same as performing at 60fps.
Among my arguments was the theory that the PS4 was just barely able to attain those numbers, and so even a small variation in performance on the part of the Xbox One may have been enough to prefer an easy adjustment such as lowering the native resolution or the fixed FPS to make the gameplay more consistent.
And boy was I ever right. At least if the info from Tomb Raider is any indication. In fact, it is worse for Sony than I had anticipated from this.
Watch the video in that link.
The PS4 is NOT stable at 60fps. Nowhere near it. It actually spends most of the game hovering around the 45fps, which is a lot closer to the some of the real world differences between the 2 consoles on paper. At one point, about 75-80% into the video, the PS4 actually drops as low as 32fps, in a scene where the Xbox One is still holding a stable 30fps.
Which is pretty crazy when you think about it. Not only is it not stable at 60fps, but at times it can drop as low (and perhaps lower) than just 2fps above the hard cap imposed on the Xbox One.
By contrast, the Xbox One actually is stable at 30fps. Throughout the entire video it is rare to see anything but a straight green line at the 30fps mark for the Xbox One, and when it does waver, it corrects quickly.
The PS4 ONLY attains a stable 60fps for any measurable length of time in 2 scenes when there is virtually nothing happening on the screen. Add any movement or additional characters and the fps drops. Based on that video, even if the PS4 had been capped at 45fps, it wouldn't have been as stable as the Xbox One is at 30.
So, saying that this title runs at 60fps on the PS4 is a lie. Saying it is CAPPED at 60fps is true. But irrelevant. They could cap a game at a trillion fps. That doesn't mean it will ever reach that or be stable there, just means that even if it could, it would never render faster.
Based on what I saw, at best, the PS4 version would be relatively stable at 45fps and the Xbox One is absolutely stable at 30fps.
Unfortunately, this doesn't give us a fair comparison. We know based on this that the PS4 version looks to rather be able to perform at 45fps. We simply don't know where the Xbox One version would have hit a similar wall. All we know is it is almost definitely higher than the 30fps it was capped at. Otherwise, that wee little green line would have been wobbling throughout the video.
What is confusing though is, seeing the Xbox One performance, why they simply didn't cap it at 60 fps as well. Since the PS4 certainly isn't able to deal that out consistently, why not cap it at 30 too? If the PS4 could maintain 60, or even maintain it most of the time, it would make sense to me. But since it can't, why not cap both at 60 or both at 30?
I believe I read elsewhere that both ports were handled by different studios. My guess is it is simply a difference in opinions. If they were both done by the same studio, based on these results I would imagine both would be capped the same. On the one hand, the studio that did the PS4 port seems to have preferred a 60fps cap because the system CAN render higher than 30fps. And the studio that did the Xbox One port likely felt that since it isn't stable at 60fps, but is at 30 that it made sense to cap it there which would have lessened load on GPU/memory/CPU to help ensure the whole game/system run smoothly.
I'm not saying I think the Xbox One would also have reached 45fps as stably as PS4. On paper, PS4 optimists peg the PS4 at about 50% faster than the Xbox One, and that would perfectly explain a difference between 30 and 45fps. But, given just how stable the Xbox One was at 30, it looks like it probably could have pulled off another 5-10fps no problem.
But that poses another problem... if, without the cap at 30, the XB1 could pull 35-40fps, that would mean the PS4 in this real world test is only 11-22% faster than XB1. And with 10% GPU dedicated to processing for Kinect, that means XB1 could really be a patch away from being between as little as 1-12% off the PS4 in real world performance numbers.
Either way, the claim that the PS4 is twice as powerful as the Xbox One took a pretty hard blow today. And that link proves that capped at 60fps is NOT the same as performing at 60fps.
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