Tweet
Four years on from its predecessor, Bethesda emerges from the vault with the hugely anticipated Fallout 4 - adding new technologies to its Creation Engine on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Equipped with an improved physically-based lighting model, it's confirmed the game's development process began with the team porting its earlier work to Xbox One first. However, optimising for both platforms has evidently proven tricky since, and on analysing the reality of each console's frame-rate at launch, the results are something of a mixed bag.First up though, we can confirm PS4 and Xbox One render at a native 1080p resolution, with no compromise in either case. It gives us a sharp base image, and in presenting a post-apocalyptic world that sprawls out for virtual miles in each direction, it pays off hugely in keeping the image sharp on views across the wasteland. It's a surprise for Microsoft's machine too, with its previous history of cutting back on resolution in similar open world games. But here, both consoles give a matching, full HD presentation, also using a temporal anti-aliasing pass to minimise shimmer on panning shots.
We'll be giving a more thorough analysis of the game's visuals in our full Face-Off. But initial testing shows PS4 and Xbox One's core graphics settings are surprisingly close across the board. Texture maps are matched for resolution, with a generous level of anisotropic filtering across the ground for good measure. Each uses the same grade of screen-space ambient occlusion, to match PC's highest, and effects quality is identical too. With everything being so close in the visual stakes though, how does the frame-rate on these machines hold up?
Read more…
More...