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Just what kind of graphical leap is the upcoming generation really bringing us? Of course, years lie ahead for studios to tap into the fullest potential of the PS4 and Xbox One, but right now, launch window titles like Battlefield 4 give us the clearest barometer of where technical progress is being made. A cutting edge shooter that presses the 360 and PS3 formats harder than most with sandbox-style maps and destruction physics, it's inevitable that the next generation versions deliver more than just resolution and frame-rate boosts. Indeed, the overhaul is remarkable at points, though DICE still plays to the older hardware's strengths to deliver impressive results.To jump straight into the comparisons, we've put together a PS3/PC/Xbox 360 comparison gallery and the usual barrage of head-to-head videos, each clip highlighting different gains in visual fidelity between the generations. As always, both 360 and PS3 versions are patched up to the latest update (1.02) before we start - labelled as a multiplayer mode update that weighs in at 123MB on start-up, but we kick off with a current-gen vs. PC comparison, with the computer version representing the zenith of the next-gen experience.
Curiously, since we covered the game in its beta form, the 360's internal resolution has bumped up from 1280x688 to now match the PS3's value of 1280x704 (DICE's Johan Andersson tells us that the border issue was a bug). Borders are the cause for the minor vertical nip and tuck in either case, cropping the tops and bottoms by eight pixels, though it's barely noticeable in play. And as before, image quality is divided between the two due to the PS3 applying a form of MLAA across the image, while Microsoft's opts for the post-processing FXAA, blurring trees and thin details to a greater degree as a result, but reducing the pixel crawl on these elements evident on Sony's platform.
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