Face-Off: The Division

[Administrator]

After two beta tests, some might say that The Division was a well-known quantity even before its full release. Ubisoft's multi-platform testing was exhaustive, allowing us to get a good measure on visual quality and performance. From a console perspective, changes since then are minimal but there are one or two welcome visual improvements on PC.
As before, the main point of separation between consoles comes down to resolution. PS4 permanently runs at native 1080p, while Xbox One operates using dynamic resolution scaling, which sees pixel quality reduced in more complex scenes. For example, outdoor areas tend to operate at 1792x1008 and 1728x972, with the engine switching back to native 1080p when moving indoors or into less detailed environments.
In practice the lower resolution is quite subtle, but there are areas where the difference is noticeable. Texture details on street signs and distant objects are blurrier on Xbox One, and sub-pixel edges are less clearly resolved. It's perhaps the main sticking point with this version of the game, though image quality still manages to hold up well considering the drop in pixel count.
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