Have image quality improvements come at a cost?
As John has covered in detail,Dead Space is on the whole a successful remake effort.
Now reports online suggest that the games visual woes have indeed been addressed.
So whats the current state of the game on current-gen?
And do these image-salvaging measures hurt performance?
The PS5 version in particular exhibited some very strange artefacts in virtually every shot.
Textures resolved oddly as well, appearing blocky and suffering from breakup on fine details.
Again, these were temporally unstable, leading to a lot of flickering when the game was in motion.
The Xbox versions of the game also had issues, though their image quality woes were somewhat less pronounced.
Ultimately, this seems to have come down to the use of variable rate shading (VRS).
Something within the software VRS didnt seem to be working correctly though, producing the obtrusive artefacts we described.
Now the game is in a much better place, as VRS has been removed entirely.
This boosts image quality substantially, both on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles.
This varies by mode, as visible in the table below.
Beyond resolution and image quality, there’s little to separate the various modes and consoles.
It’s an appreciated visual boost, although the lighting is still very pleasing with SSAO.
Let’s start with the Xboxes.
Series S has one visual mode, which targets 30fps.
Fortunately, this is a close-to-locked 30fps update, delivering a solid 30 even in challenging content.
Series X defaults to a performance mode that targets 60fps, which is again pretty solid.
It’s possible that it could dip in select circumstances, but if so it’s quite rare.
The PS5 version targets 60fps by default with its Performance mode, which again generally holds steady.
It’s a little bit more unstable, but I didn’t spot anything really egregious.
Ultimately though any performance issues don’t amount to anything more than minor quibbles.
EA Motive has produced one of the most accomplished remake efforts in recent memory.
