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professor_t

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,338
I'm not having these issues at all?

It worries me that some people aren't experiencing it because now I wonder whether this is the first sign that my Series X has a defect. My game ran fine when I first got it, and looked beautiful; now I get bad fps drops and an eventual hard crash (where the console turns off) after about 10 minutes of play. This is the only game where it happens, but I wonder if it's the only game that is taxing the console enough to make it happen (the only other "demanding" game I play right now is Valhalla, and that's fine).

Anyway, I don't mean to distract from the thread. To stay on topic, I think this kind of difference is more of what I expected, in terms of where each console has an advantage. Over time, I personally would like to see the Series X have a consistent advantage - not because I'm a fanboy, but because I just want a circumstance where both manufacturers bring something to the table and have more parity in terms of market share. I feel like a competitive environment, where MS is pressing Sony to stay on their toes and vice versa, is better than one in which Sony simply dominates the "hardcore" console space (and I would say the same of MS, but they're not even close to dominating). I may be misguided, but I just think competition is good, and MS was NOT very competitive in the prior generation.
 

Bobbyleejones

Banned
Aug 25, 2019
2,581
What are the possibilities that the Series S version just a product of lack of effort on that console vs what it's actually capable. Could they have just used an improved One S build or maybe One X build?

If it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about it's because I don't.
Look at forza, gears, sea of thieves and watchdogs 🤷‍♂️
 

VanWinkle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,095
Man, great job to the development team getting such a nice looking FPS at launch. Very impressive. Those ray-traced shadows look fantastic.

Both PS5 and Series X versions look extremely nice. Shame that PS5 version dips in a few set piece moments in the ray-traced mode, but overall seems very steady and well-worth keeping the extra graphic fidelity.
 

Railgun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,148
Australia
It worries me that some people aren't experiencing it because now I wonder whether this is the first sign that my Series X has a defect. My game ran fine when I first got it, and looked beautiful; now I get bad fps drops and an eventual hard crash (where the console turns off) after about 10 minutes of play. This is the only game where it happens, but I wonder if it's the only game that is taxing the console enough to make it happen (the only other "demanding" game I play right now is Valhalla, and that's fine).

Anyway, I don't mean to distract from the thread. To stay on topic, I think this kind of difference is more of what I expected, in terms of where each console has an advantage. Over time, I personally would like to see the Series X have a consistent advantage - not because I'm a fanboy, but because I just want a circumstance where both manufacturers bring something to the table and have more parity in terms of market share. I feel like a competitive environment, where MS is pressing Sony to stay on their toes and vice versa, is better than one in which Sony simply dominates the "hardcore" console space (and I would say the same of MS, but they're not even close to dominating). I may be misguided, but I just think competition is good, and MS was NOT very competitive in the prior generation.
It's not your Series X, the performance problems are widely reported on the Cold War sub since the last patch. As with any game having performance issues, there will always be people with magic consoles who don't have problems.
 

professor_t

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,338
It's not your Series X, the performance problems are widely reported on the Cold War sub since the last patch. As with any game having performance issues, there will always be people with magic consoles who don't have problems.
I hope you're right (and you probably are). I expect to see this in the PC space, where there are a billion different configurations, but for consoles I kind of expect a patch to break it for all of us or none of us (aside from issues like poor ventilation, setup, etc.).

Either way, I hope they get on it soon. The game is basically unplayable.
 

Pheonix

Banned
Dec 14, 2018
5,990
St Kitts
What are the possibilities that the Series S version just a product of lack of effort on that console vs what it's actually capable. Could they have just used an improved One S build or maybe One X build?

If it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about it's because I don't.
With the series S, one of two things was always going to happen.

They either port down to it, or port up from it.

If it's the former, you're good. It would be properly optimized for and it would run great. And the XSX version would run significantly better for it too.

But the likelihood that that would ever be the case was u likely. Cause what is happening is the latter. They build primarily for the PS5/XSX cause they are evenly speced and that way they build the best game they can build with the most ease. Then they try and port that down to the XSS.

That would never end well...
 

nitewulf

Member
Nov 29, 2017
7,204
I feel the S is getting a bit shafted earlier on. It's a mighty mini console, and I hope when ground up current gen development begins it gets a bit more attention. Wouldn't mind seeing a small indie team going all out on pushing this thing.
 

nitewulf

Member
Nov 29, 2017
7,204
ya'll serious about the muzzle flashes and smoke? you realize screens can be captured at different instances, like after the gun has stopped firing?
 

dem

Banned
Nov 3, 2017
900
ya'll serious about the muzzle flashes and smoke? you realize screens can be captured at different instances, like after the gun has stopped firing?


I watched the video... series x was definitely missing the muzzle flash and smoke at 120hz

Who knows why. Doesn't seem like either would effect performance in a real way.
 

Hulkamania78

Member
Oct 29, 2017
167
Manchester UK
It worries me that some people aren't experiencing it because now I wonder whether this is the first sign that my Series X has a defect. My game ran fine when I first got it, and looked beautiful; now I get bad fps drops and an eventual hard crash (where the console turns off) after about 10 minutes of play. This is the only game where it happens, but I wonder if it's the only game that is taxing the console enough to make it happen (the only other "demanding" game I play right now is Valhalla, and that's fine).

Anyway, I don't mean to distract from the thread. To stay on topic, I think this kind of difference is more of what I expected, in terms of where each console has an advantage. Over time, I personally would like to see the Series X have a consistent advantage - not because I'm a fanboy, but because I just want a circumstance where both manufacturers bring something to the table and have more parity in terms of market share. I feel like a competitive environment, where MS is pressing Sony to stay on their toes and vice versa, is better than one in which Sony simply dominates the "hardcore" console space (and I would say the same of MS, but they're not even close to dominating). I may be misguided, but I just think competition is good, and MS was NOT very competitive in the prior generation.
Mine started today doing this . Twice in MP my pad kept rumbling and even without power on the console and the console hard locked
 

Ra

Rap Genius
Moderator
Oct 27, 2017
12,207
Dark Space
And what I'm saying is that no one ever says same graphics at lower resolution.

They just highlight a resolution difference and the expectation is always feature parity.

And microsoft alluded to this by saying... The series S is based on the same architecture. Same CPU same GPU, and the highlighted the only differences to be SSD amount, RAM and resolution.

Let's not act like everything in their marketing to this point hasn't suggested that it would have parity with the XSX but just at a lower rez. Hell, it's been marketed as being the same thing but just at a lower rez.

That's not what is happening here.
They NEVER said same GPU.

They clearly said it was a 4TF console. To be honest, anyone who thought a 4TF console would have the same graphics as a 12TF console, just because the resolution was lower, misled themselves and just didn't do any research on how GPUs work. That has never been the case for GPUs with such a gulf between them in realm of desktop GPUs.

Blaming Microsoft for one's own ignorance only travels so far. The information is out there to be found and anyone who hangs out on Era has heard it said a thousand times.

The Series S GPU is slower than the lower end of RDNA1 desktop GPUs (5.2TF 5500 XT). You were clearly expecting something out of it that it is not.
 

cgpartlow

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,005
Seattle, WA
The ray traced shadows look great on my Series X, but I turned them off because in multiplayer my game seems to be a lot less stable with them on. I was getting weird visual glitches and a few hard crashes. How is the game stability for everyone else?

It's interesting that Series X is better at ray tracing but 120 is better on PS5. I wonder if that has to do with more CUs versus higher clocks.
 

Nightengale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,708
Malaysia
What are the possibilities that the Series S version just a product of lack of effort on that console vs what it's actually capable. Could they have just used an improved One S build or maybe One X build?

If it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about it's because I don't.

Specs have never been 100% reflective of what a product is capable, because we play games, not consoles.

And games are multiple layers of abstraction of a console's spec, on top of of dozens of other factors that go into a final product like budget, time, engine, etc.
 
Nov 8, 2017
13,111
They clearly said it was a 4TF console. To be honest, anyone who thought a 4TF console would have the same graphics as a 12TF console, just because the resolution was lower, misled themselves and just didn't do any research on how GPUs work. That has never been the case for GPUs with such a gulf between them in realm of desktop GPUs.

Not following you here. You've always been able to claw back huge amounts of performance by lowering resolution. It's an unjustified assumption that they "can't" offer 120hz or RT here - we only know that they didn't. The only major complication complication I can think of that isn't immediately solved by further resolution cuts would be that the BVH being stored in RAM might cause some problems if the game hasn't clawed back enough memory by cutting texture quality and overall resolution. But developers are already limiting bounces and having distance cutoffs and whatnot to help on that front.

The question for each developer is what balance do you want to strike of lowering settings versus lowering resolution - obviously it's more favorable to drop an expensive feature if doing so results in an overall better looking game compared to keeping it.

For Watch Dogs Legions, they kept feature parity, and the Series S delivers resolutions in the range of 900p-1080p while X delivers 1440p-2160p. However in this game, they've clearly chosen to keep resolution higher on avg on Series S - it pushes more pixels in some cases than X does in some scenes, just without RT. Or in the 120hz mode, it is frequently lower resolution than Series S is (1200p bottom on S, 1080p on X in 120hz mode). They obviously "can" run the game at 120hz, but didn't give the option, probably because of a combination of lower priority SKU, limited development time, and a decision that the game is better at higher res than it is at 120 on S.
 

Deleted member 16908

Oct 27, 2017
9,377
I feel the S is getting a bit shafted earlier on. It's a mighty mini console, and I hope when ground up current gen development begins it gets a bit more attention. Wouldn't mind seeing a small indie team going all out on pushing this thing.

We're already seeing indie games like The Touryst and Falconeer make great use of the S. Hopefully there's plenty more where that came from.
 

dlauv

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,513
S will be fine. They should stop trying to live the 1440p dream though.
 

Diablos

has a title.
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,594
Why does PS5 have framerate drops in those key set piece moments with RT on?
 

leng jai

Member
Nov 2, 2017
15,119
Not following you here. You've always been able to claw back huge amounts of performance by lowering resolution. It's an unjustified assumption that they "can't" offer 120hz or RT here - we only know that they didn't. The only major complication complication I can think of that isn't immediately solved by further resolution cuts would be that the BVH being stored in RAM might cause some problems if the game hasn't clawed back enough memory by cutting texture quality and overall resolution. But developers are already limiting bounces and having distance cutoffs and whatnot to help on that front.

The question for each developer is what balance do you want to strike of lowering settings versus lowering resolution - obviously it's more favorable to drop an expensive feature if doing so results in an overall better looking game compared to keeping it.

For Watch Dogs Legions, they kept feature parity, and the Series S delivers resolutions in the range of 900p-1080p while X delivers 1440p-2160p. However in this game, they've clearly chosen to keep resolution higher on avg on Series S - it pushes more pixels in some cases than X does in some scenes, just without RT. Or in the 120hz mode, it is frequently lower resolution than Series S is (1200p bottom on S, 1080p on X in 120hz mode). They obviously "can" run the game at 120hz, but didn't give the option, probably because of a combination of lower priority SKU, limited development time, and a decision that the game is better at higher res than it is at 120 on S.

The problem is what the developers classify as the minimum acceptable resolution resolution. It's highly likely a lot of them aren't going to be that keen for games to be 900 or even 720p on the S. I'm quite sure Valhalla could have run at 900p at a very similar frame rate to the X but Ubisoft probably didn't want it running at sub 1080p. Then you've got to factor in when a game is only 1440p on the Series X and that leaves even less room for the S to simply drop the resolution. Also, how many developers are going to go out of their way to make the best possible optimisation specifically for the S version?

We're already seeing indie games like The Touryst and Falconeer make great use of the S. Hopefully there's plenty more where that came from.

Obviously stuff like The Touryst was going to be good on the S, that game isn't demanding at all. If those and sidescrollers are the type of games you mainly play the S is more than enough.
 

Ravage

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
1,536
Wow I'm really impressed by how stable the 120 fps mode is. I'm guessing this will be the standard way to play multiplayer games this gen.

As for the h2h comparison, it does seem like a pattern is forming: identical performance for PS5 and SX, with SS being shit. Exclusives and controller will likely be the differentiators going forward.
 
Last edited:

Ra

Rap Genius
Moderator
Oct 27, 2017
12,207
Dark Space
They obviously "can" run the game at 120hz, but didn't give the option, probably because of a combination of lower priority SKU, limited development time, and a decision that the game is better at higher res than it is at 120 on S.
The visual sacrifices necessary to allow the Series S to reach 120Hz were likely deemed not worth it. It'd be at sub-1080p with significantly reduced visuals.
 

Dave.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,152
Hmm interesting so it's not reproducible each time you visit that same spot?
Correct. The pictures from VG Tech clearly show this:

cw-sp-ps5-rt-test-5-8v1k55.png


cw-sp-ps5-rt-test-5-1nmkx0.png


And in the description to their video:

There was an issue on PS5 where the frame rate could randomly drop below 60fps during scenes that it previously ran at a solid 60fps. This issue wasn't encountered on Xbox Series X.

So clearly a bug, or some weird issue. It's crazy how some in this thread are so very quick to amplify it as "XSX better at raytracing", even when DF are saying they encountered the drops incredibly infrequently (like, the two times it was shown). Outside this extremely odd behaviour - which no matter what it is, is certainly not indicative of a lack of power - the 60fps+RT mode performs identically on both systems.

www.youtube.com

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S Frame Rate Comparison

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S frame rate comparison comparing the games framerate/fps in the campaign using the 120fps and Ray Traci...
 

Rats

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,112
Correct. The pictures from VG Tech clearly show this:

cw-sp-ps5-rt-test-5-8v1k55.png


cw-sp-ps5-rt-test-5-1nmkx0.png


And in the description to their video:



So clearly a bug, or some weird issue. It's crazy how some in this thread are so very quick to amplify it as "XSX better at raytracing", even when DF are saying they encountered the drops incredibly infrequently (like, the two times it was shown). Outside this extremely odd behaviour - which no matter what it is, is certainly not indicative of a lack of power - the 60fps+RT mode performs identically on both systems.

www.youtube.com

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S Frame Rate Comparison

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S frame rate comparison comparing the games framerate/fps in the campaign using the 120fps and Ray Traci...

Right. This is probably some weird unique issue just like the Xbox's drops in Valhalla. That kind of performance delta can't be explained by tflop differential.
 

RivalGT

Member
Dec 13, 2017
6,399
Right. This is probably some weird unique issue just like the Xbox's drops in Valhalla. That kind of performance delta can't be explained by tflop differential.
This game has been crashing a lot on PS5 and XSX, at least I've seen a lot of people in my twitter time line complaining about it. So the game is likely coming in hot, and with a few bugs.
 

Alexandros

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,812
The reason no one is talking about dynamic rez is because its truly pointless. As some of us said before, once you are running at a rez between 1440p up to 2160p and scaling dynamically it's pretty much indistinguishable for the naked eye to detect the scaling or the actual rez. To the point that if someone doesn't tell you you likely wouldn't know. You have to consider that this rez scaling isn't like you are running at 1440p or 10 seconds then running at 2160p for 4 seconds. It's more like for 10 frames in a second you may be at 1440p, and be at 1800p for 40 frames, and then at 2160p for 10 frames. All that is happening in ONE second. Totally pointless to track. Kinda like how its pointless to mention that the difference between a bright and dark version of the same color in any display comes down to the display pulsing light. The naked eye just sees the color.

Simply put, we are in the post-resolution era now. Now, "pixel quality" will be more important than an actual resolution. The frame drops we see just comes down to how quickly their engines can adjust for loads, and in some cases, devs stubbornly setting a minimum res limit for scaling. Eg, rather than set the minimum res scale at 1440p, if they set it at 1368p or even 1298p, then you will likely never see any frame drops on the PS5.

I disagree. We may be heading towards a post-resolution era but we are clearly not there yet. Not only are the resolution drops often too drastic to be imperceptible, but games often use ineffective temporal anti-aliasing or reconstruction solutions that drop quality even further.
 

Spish!

Member
Oct 27, 2017
571
Right. This is probably some weird unique issue just like the Xbox's drops in Valhalla. That kind of performance delta can't be explained by tflop differential.
I don't think there's enough information to link these two games' performance issues. Especially when we have evidence that suggests the areas that tanked on PS5 do so sporadically as opposed to consistently, but no such evidence exists yet for Valhalla on Series X.
 

nitewulf

Member
Nov 29, 2017
7,204
Ok, so the muzzle flash is missing yet the same scene has the clock tower decimating into rubble with smoke effects on the X and just perforated walls on the PS5. Same gun, same bullets, the barrel has the same fire effects, that is an odd omission. But I am not sure if it'd explain anything either way.
 

pure

Member
Jun 18, 2019
236
Germany
Those drops into the forties on PS5 with RT on seem to be a bug as they don't consistently happen https://bit.ly/2IHsqPN
I agree. I played through the campaign and some multiplayer and they feel like hard drops for a second or two and then its back to normal. Happens in MP too sometimes. The game seems to be a little bit buggy right now. As far as I can tell, these drops also happen on the latest patch for Xbox users?
 

Fezan

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,274
Correct. The pictures from VG Tech clearly show this:

cw-sp-ps5-rt-test-5-8v1k55.png


cw-sp-ps5-rt-test-5-1nmkx0.png


And in the description to their video:



So clearly a bug, or some weird issue. It's crazy how some in this thread are so very quick to amplify it as "XSX better at raytracing", even when DF are saying they encountered the drops incredibly infrequently (like, the two times it was shown). Outside this extremely odd behaviour - which no matter what it is, is certainly not indicative of a lack of power - the 60fps+RT mode performs identically on both systems.

www.youtube.com

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S Frame Rate Comparison

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S frame rate comparison comparing the games framerate/fps in the campaign using the 120fps and Ray Traci...
Seems like tools issue on PS5 :D
 

arsene_P5

Prophet of Regret
Member
Apr 17, 2020
15,438
XSX handling raytracing better, and PS5 handling 120fps better is the exact opposite of what I expected.
Why did you expect RT to be better on PS5?

I am not 100% sure, but that's in line with my expectations. The PS5 GPU runs faster, thus there is a advantage in 120FPS mode. Meanwhile RT favours CU a bit more iirc and thus Xbox has the better RT performance. I think overall this seems to be a game with good ports for both consoles. With one or two bugs here and there.
 

arsene_P5

Prophet of Regret
Member
Apr 17, 2020
15,438
XSS is a disappointment to me, XSX after price drop it is.
Don't expect drops anytime soon. All consoles have one common problem and that is that cost per transitor isn't decreasing anymore. Thus Moore's Law, albeit not dead, is a zombie. You get better performance with die shrinks, but you won't get the cost benefits anymore.
 

RedRum

Newbie Paper Plane Pilot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,365
I just saw this on reddit. Bullshit or no??


Apparently, you need to correctly download the right file packs to get the Ray Traced shadows to appear in game. Digital Foundry incorrectly stated in their video that RT isn't available in the Series S version, however that just isn't true. Here's a source for downloading the packs: https://youtu.be/Ke3cB8yJOD8

And here's some gameplay of a mission showing Ray Traced shadows at the very beginning of the mission from the helicopter: https://youtu.be/4_0Lmt6qEKA

Compare the last video with the footage Digital Foundry had, I think it's clear they don't have the correct files downloaded, which would be understandable considering there's a bug preventing someone from downloading all the files correctly (apparently). Hopefully they make a updated video, or maybe someone can tweet at them about it? Regardless Ray Tracing is there.

VnfOxJ1.jpg


Dark1x
 
Last edited:
Apr 4, 2018
4,514
Vancouver, BC
What are the possibilities that the Series S version just a product of lack of effort on that console vs what it's actually capable. Could they have just used an improved One S build or maybe One X build?

If it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about it's because I don't.

I think this is possibly a given. Or perhaps more likely, the team just lacked time, and prioritized PS5 and Series X.

There's nothing particularly wrong with the Series S version, it's actually running impressively well. On the other hand, by my basic math, they likely could have done both 120fps and Ray tracing modes by dropping the resolution to a dynamic 900p-1080p (and perhaps let it drop a bit further if needed). I think that would have been a very impressive result that a lot of people would have been happy with. Developers need to let go of high resolutions on Series S, and let it hit those high framerates, give people the same choices as its big brother.