Digital Foundry tests the ‘next-gen’ patches.
Going back to test these 2017/2018 releases, Origins and Odyssey still visually impress.
The move from 30 to 60fps is the headline feature here, and it is delivered with surprising reliability.
Most obviously, a single frame is duplicated on each camera cut, producing a slight stutter.
Secondly, some elements fail to update at a full 60fps.
The surface normal map on water in Origins also seems to update at half-rate.
Finally, there are some occasional performance issues in combat.
This is a demanding sequence and does drop frames on all systems at times.
There are also some platform specific issues.
Series X also generally suffers from a bit more from performance-related drops than other systems.
Though that is a long list of minor issues, really in practice these are successful 60fps upgrades.
Side-by-side, this is clearly a big upgrade, and these titles benefit enormously from the doubling of framerate.
No surprises there, but there are some interesting results in terms of visual clarity.
Essentially, each current-gen machine inherits its resolution range from the last-gen code.
Series X is derived from One X, PS5 from PS4 Pro, and Series S from Xbox One.
Cutscenes tend to feature lower resolution numbers than gameplay, particularly in cutscenes that heavily use depth of field.
This is an excellent opportunity to dive into some of the most convincingly-realised open worlds in video games.
