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While critics deliver mixed verdicts on Mirror's Edge Catalyst, DICE's Frostbite 3 technology continues to deliver. Global illumination (via Geomerics' Enlighten), screen-space and real-time reflections alongside physically-based rendering take centre-stage here, helping to add an additional tone of realism to the highly stylised open world city of Glass - all with a 60fps target. The results aren't perfect on consoles, where processing resources are limited, and as you would expect, some compromises are in effect. As with all DICE titles, the best experience overall comes from the PC version.That's not to say that the console versions aren't worth consideration though. PS4 hands-in a fairly respectable 900p image, though one that is visibly softer than a native 1080p presentation, while Xbox One again has to make do with a 720p framebuffer. Scaling artefacts are clearly more visible on Microsoft's system and fine details are often smoothed over, which is not ideal. There's a sense that the game's high contrast look isn't the best fit for a heavily upscaled presentation, and it's the one blemish that sticks out on Xbox One over the other versions - though PS4 too can look a little rough. As always, it's the PC game that takes point when selecting 1080p to match console output, where a native resolution provides a crisper and cleaner image that better preserves intricate detail at both near and far distances.
The resolution set-up remains the same as other DICE-developed titles this generation, and in this respect there's no improvement over the recent Mirror's Edge Catalyst beta. However, in other areas, there are noticeable changes to the core visuals: draw distances are better fleshed out in the final game, with more geometry detail spread across distant scenery, while LOD streaming is also less aggressive, so texture pop-in is reduced. All three platforms benefit from these improvements, although the biggest improvements are seen on Xbox One. Buildings that were previously culled from various scenes are now present, and the cityscape is now more populated than the PC beta build. If fact, the level of detail on all three versions is notably improved from the beta, nicely filling out the skyline as you scramble across the rooftops.
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