Video Games

Saints Row Performance Review – PS5 vs Xbox Series X vs PC

Volition has always been known for pushing technology forward, and its game Decent beats the revolutionary Quake to a full 3D engine. Technology continues to be a core pillar of foundation in this Saints reboot of his Row. Using an improved proprietary engine, Volition added a big ticket to this generation: Ray Tracing – Ray Tracing Ambient Occlusion to be exact, but more on that later. The current generation console version offers the largest set of modes we’ve seen in a console game to date. We look at PS5, Xbox Series X and S, PC, and Xbox One X to show you what the latest generation versions have to offer.

mode of play

All platforms offer a fixed set of resolution outputs and do not fall below the stated output levels. The large number of modes also suggests that the engine does not currently offer a dynamic resolution scaling solution. Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 have 5 fixed modes and 2 modes that let you turn ray-traced ambient occlusion on or off, for a total of 7 permutations on each console. There are two 1920x1080p modes, two 2560x1440p modes and a single mode for 4K. This means you can choose your preference: more pixels, more performance, or better quality pixels.

The Series S, albeit at a higher resolution of 2560x1440p, will make do with a single 1080p mode, similar to the Xbox One X. Additionally, both target 60 fps, but have different levels of success. This is true of all console modes tested. Neither offer ray tracing effects, so Series S owners won’t be able to take advantage of most of what their big brother offers.

The PC offers two API options that you can choose based on your personal hardware configuration. DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. We used the latter in all our tests to support DXR ray tracing on the RX 6800. Full specs are below.

  • RX6800 16GB GPU
  • Ryzen 5 3600X @ 4.2GHz
  • 32GB of DDR4 3200Mhz RAM
  • 5GB/s PCIe NVMe SSD

These specs will allow us to push these options to the max and see how much PCs and game engines can scale. Ray-traced ambient occlusion works in screen space and is only available in 1080p and 1440p modes on PS5 and Series X. This is his one element of global illumination, emulating the self-occlusion or shading of recessed areas under cars, in doorways, and even when the body contacts walls, floors, or the body itself. . The quality of the ray tracing here adds a great deal of depth and grounds within the game’s objects. Scaling up from 1080p to 1440p increases the pixel range/resolution of the effect, but the settings themselves are closer to his PC Ultra settings at 1080p than his PC High settings at 1440p. A minor change, but I noted it in my comparison. 4K mode offers the best image quality and sharpness, but sadly no ray tracing. This applies to both consoles.

We tested all modes on the PS5 and Series X and found identical output and visual parity from each of the five modes. This includes screen space HBAO. With ray tracing disabled, SSR is used for reflections, reaching PC Ultra levels at 1080p and High levels at 1440p. In fact, the console’s 1080p Ultra mode looks pretty much the same as the PC’s best mode, although shadows are sometimes noisier even on Ultra, while the high-res PC’s best mode looks a bit cleaner and has less dithering. The lack of RT reflections means that the relatively dithered stochastic reflections that SSR provides can again cause artifacts in game images, along with low-quality cube maps in certain places. means

On all platforms, stippling effects on hair, stubble, and reflections are mixed with the very strong TAA pass that the engine uses, resulting in heavy ghosting in all these areas as things move and blend into each other. occurs. Tires trace the ground, heads draw strong contours, and even shadows can band on bodies, cars, or other geometry. This is by no means terrible and only exists in certain scenarios, but you should be aware that your IQ can vary from excellent to mediocre during play. This is aided by the higher resolutions and higher shadows that PCs offer, but is never fully resolved. So these factors can be worse at 1080p due to their relation to the target output buffer. The Series S performs many of these effects lower than the big consoles. This is evident in a side-by-side comparison. However, nips and tucks help manage a close mirror of these consoles with significantly less power and memory. This may be part of the reason Ray does not offer his tracing effects. Except for pixel reduction, RT disable, small shift in SSR detail, AO, volume and alpha, all other aspects match. This includes improved character models, physics-based materials that can be designed and tweaked. The physics-based materials, while not at the highest level, are improved over previous games and are more nuanced and responsive. There is no destruction or mutilation of the character – body reflections, hair fins, skin tones, water surfaces, metal, blood – but there is a lot to see here.

console performance

There are many modes to cover here, but an odd choice is that they are all capped at 16 ms or 60 fps. For the Series X and PlayStation 5, both 1080p modes do a decent job of hitting the 60fps target. It’s unobtrusive and you can enable VRR if you want.Ultra Quality mode can dip into the high 40s for both, and you need VRR to hide those dips. This is by no means a bad thing, but it’s certainly not locked in, but due to the size and scale of these types of games, this can be even worse in certain scenarios. The main difference between the modes is that max quality offers higher LoD, foliage, higher sampling motion blur, enhanced fresnel lighting, and ambient occlusion raytraced shading. Not a dramatic visual increase, but a direct comparison highlights a reduction in tint, changes in material quality, and other visual differences. The typical pixel sample level is lower than the base output level and is noticeable when jumping to 1440p. This means you can get a much higher pixel budget for this effect, but at a cost. of performance.

At 1440p, High FPS mode is close to the performance level of 1080p Ultra mode, and both machines are about the same in points and levels of dip below 60fps. This is my preferred mode. This is because there is a reduction in visual settings, but it’s not drastic and provides a decent level of visual quality. A second 1440p mode can also hit 60 fps levels, but can drop to 30 seconds in long-time areas on both consoles. Running through the countryside and blowing things up can sometimes feel like a 30fps title with long open areas, and in a menu where you can switch between all modes he decided to offer the team a 30fps option It is recommended. This gives players even more choice with the superior level of options in console games.

Finally, the 4K mode, believe it or not, still targets 60fps. So most people think of this as 30 fps mode. The results here show a game that relies heavily on the GPU and has more cutbacks in menu visual levels, but ends up being about 22% slower on both consoles than 1440 at twice the resolution. high quality mode. Not surprisingly, it’s something we can see in our PC tests.

The Series S has a single 1080p mode and its performance is inferior to the Series X and PS5 consoles in 1440 high quality mode. We never hit 60 fps in the sections we tested, often around 30 seconds, so using the 30 fps cap option or 900p resolution here could significantly improve performance levels for this console. It suffices to suggest that . As such, it closely matches the larger console visually, but with a distinct fps split.

The Xbox One X confirms this, showing that the engine still needs some work to reduce certain effects, pixel fill rates and bandwidth costs. So the 1440p output means the frame rate drops below his 30fps. This should be added as an optional toggle. Unlocked frame rates can reach the 30s and very low 40s, but often stay within the 30fps zone. Again, not very often the console can struggle for reasons like fast traveling across the country and as a result you see something popping up very close to the camera . It’s probably using its adaptive foliage mode, which doesn’t look too far from its best on PC and consoles. In fact, it’s visually superior to the Series S due to its higher resolution and nearly identical visual settings. But with the Xbox One X being the most capable console of its generation, expect this to be the best version of the last of many.

computer performance

Even with my Ryzen 5 3600X and RX 6800, this current build is very demanding on both PC and console. With the PC set to 4K and max settings, performance levels are well below the 60 fps dream, which explains why we see console levels in all modes. 1440p/max is recommended for mid-level GPUs and 1080p/max is recommended for mid-range GPUs such as RX 6700 or RTX 2070 and below. Down to the level of consoles, 1440p with a target of 60fps is also possible.

PC Max offers the cleanest visual package out of the lot. Some of the heavy dithering in shadows and noisy pixels you get in high contrast areas is much more stable and in some cases completely resolved. The TAA pass is still heavy, and still suffers from color banding, shadow acne, and other visual blemishes (some of which render obvious bugs that may be fixed in future patches) . The claims here mean that an RTX 3090-level GPU will likely be required to approach the 4K/60 max, but that’s not guaranteed yet.

Saints Row has been away for a while, but this reboot feels and feels like a relatable new entry in this established series while offering significant technical improvements in key areas. It’s one area of ​​disappointment as it doesn’t really use the console’s SSD or compression factor. I’m here. Ray tracing can improve both materials and scene composition and is a good addition to this improved engine. That said, the performance hit even on high-end PCs may not be worth the cost of running resolutions above 1080p. and closely matches the PC in many areas. For example, scene geometry is often high on Series X and PS5 and medium on Series S in all modes. Aside from the materials, animations, and effect suites that the game provides, you can’t hide the old game’s skeleton underneath. From Havok’s physics integration and ragdoll death, to robotic AI, short shadow cascading draws, tons of pop-ins in all formats (even on PC at max settings), and a generally noisy and demanding engine. Many players may expect more than their machine expects. At least deliver on boot.

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