Digital Foundry | Devil May Cry 5 SE: PS5 vs Xbox Series X - The First Next-Gen Performance Face-Off

[Abominuz]

You would think people would be happy, but your preffered console must be stronger. So something is wrong with the game, its not optimised its not patched. Both consoles are strong and not that far apart, so the sooner you deal with it the sooner you can enjoy the games instead of being frustrated.

 

[Golding]

Did DF say anything about the performance on AC Valhalla?

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nothing yet. i'm sure it's coming.

 

[oRuin]

Good job Digital Foundry! Very interesting results. Looking forward to what's to come.

 

[Doctor Avatar]

Well, you can argue that 2TF of computing power isn't really significant, but I'll have to disagree with you.

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This kind of reasoning is so stupid.

By your logic the difference between the XSX and PS5 is "bigger" than the difference between the SNES and the PS4.

Of course comparing things in RELATIVE terms rather than absolute terms without any kind of context makes more sense. Because that is how it will relate to performance. The difference between a SNES game and a PS4 game is going to be huge, the difference between PS5 and XSX will likely be imperceptible to most gamers.

Numbers without context are useless.

 

[brain_stew]

Some really disappointing results for the Series X as far as I'm concerned, equivalent PC hardware performs much better looking at some benchmarks. Even a 1700x was able to deliver 170fps, so an 8 core Zen 2 should be enough for 120fps conformably. Something is seriously wrong with either this port or Microsoft's software stack.

If the PS5 120hz issue is due to a system wide implementation then that needs an urgent fix from Sony, it is straight up broken in DMC5. The strong performance of the PS5 version relative to the Series X becomes academic when you're left with a judder fest and forced 1080p output.

All around a really bad effort as far as I'm concerned. I'd be disappointed if I received this as a free upgrade, it's laughable that a paid for patch is such a mess.

 

[Omnistalgic]

For sure. A lot of people here like to throw around the "only 17% difference in power" figure, but that 17% is greater than the gpu capability of the most powerful system at launch from the previous gen (PS4). So... that is not insignificant at all. However, I agree with all the takes that multi-plats will be virtually identical and it will be up to first party efforts to show off the difference in power. That will be a tough task for Microsoft as we all know Sony's 1st parties are REALLY good at pulling off visuals we didn't think possible on the hardware.

Regarding the performance, I'd guess its more that the Xbox build isn't as well optimized as the PS5 build. I think that's much more likely than it being a situation where the PS5 is "punching above its weight."

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What? This doesn't make any sense then to NOT minimize the power difference?
- 3rd party will look very close
- First party will make the biggest difference
- Sony's studios for the past 2 gens now have had some of the best technical achievements from first party

On paper the gap is significant, in real world performance and games, it's not. That's the very reason the difference should be minimized? Unless I'm missing something?

 

[goons14]

Also, unless i misheard at the end, they mentioned on the PS5 it always forces a 120hz output??? So when connected to a non HDMI 2.1 TV, Youre stuck with downsampled 1080P event in quality mode, rather than 4K60???????

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it's early morning so my mind isn't understanding. so my tv is non hdmi 2.1 are you saying that if a play a 4k60 game my 120hz tv will drop the res down on any game to 1080p?

edit. or is this only capture card related stuff?

 

[Pachinko]

It's quite a let down that Capcom apparently slapped this together so hastily for launch. Also really makes me wonder - if you just run DMC5 in BC mode on either console is it more stable ? obviously it's missing all the extra content but at the bare minimum I'd wager it has a locked 60 fps default compared to the mild jank on the next gen systems release. I realize it's also a pandemic and WFH has impacted a LOT more than most people realize but that also makes me think a short delay to iron out these problems may have been preferable. Imagine if you downloaded this day 1 as a fan of last years release only to encounter issues no matter the settings. I know I was considering it even as an owner of the PC release just to have more PS5 games to play in the coming weeks but DF's breakdown has convinced me it's not really worth it. So thank you Digital Foundry :D

As for the XBSX VS PS5 war that's only going to rage for the coming months and years , those 2 TF/CPU+memory clocks should make the most difference at the highest res and framerate target so the 120fps mode being buggier on XBSX is a letdown for yet another reason.

 

[Skeff]

Well, you can argue that 2TF of computing power isn't really significant, but I'll have to disagree with you.

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I believe his argument is that a proportional representation is more accurate than a pure TF representation, which actually rings true.

If a GPU at XTF can run a game at 50 fps a GPU with all parts +10% would be expected to run it at 55fps. Regardless of the additional amount of actual TF.

 

[Golding]

What? This doesn't make any sense then to NOT minimize the power difference?
- 3rd party will look very close
- First party will make the biggest difference
- Sony's studios for the past 2 gens now have had some of the best technical achievements from first party

On paper the gap is significant, in real world performance and games, it's not. That's the very reason the difference should be minimized? Unless I'm missing something?

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Slow down grasshopper.. this is just the beginning of the gen. specwise the X should almost always have better performance with third parties... this to me seems more like a bad port.

 

[Dantero]

So if I have a LG CX, I am stuck with 1080p no matter what? (120hz tv)

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on ps5 yes. On Xbox no.

 

[Deleted member 46804]

You would think people would be happy, but your preffered console must be stronger. So something is wrong with the game, its not optimised its not patched. Both consoles are strong and not that far apart, so the sooner you deal with it the sooner you can enjoy the games instead of being frustrated.

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The port is a mess across both systems. There's plenty to complain about here.

 

[TheWooniestWoona]

So if I have a LG CX, I am stuck with 1080p no matter what? (120hz tv)

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No, the CX can do 4K at 120Hz, so you'd get full 4K.

The issue is with older TVs that can't do 4K 120Hz, but can do 1080p at 120. For some reason it sees a 120Hz compatible resolution and locks to that rather than 4K.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Exactly what I was wondering while I watched the video. That particular wording seems out of place when the specs difference is so tiny, especially compared to the last generation. This is not another "PS4 Pro VS One X" situation, the gap is a lot smaller.

Yet with that wording from them it seems like painting the PS5 as "the little console that surprising could" against the "colossal Xbox who tripped".

I don't think that's their intention, but that's how it comes across.

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To their credit, the difference in frames is generally less than 6 to 8%

the theoretical difference in TF and bandwidth is greater than 18%

so their comment about PS5 punching above its weight is totally true, even though the paper gap wasn't big to begin with

 

[Mahonay]

Jesus. Yeah frame rates are absolutely all over the place. For a last gen game this seems pretty poor for performance. Hopefully there's a patch that stabilizes things.

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

I knew the 1.8TF gap wouldn't translate to anything in real life. Folks are looking at that 1.8TF gap with last gen goggles and not realizing that games are now way more demanding. 1.8TF with newer nextgen games is gonna be negligible.

In other words, both consoles are powerful beasts and will trade blows and have the upper hand in different areas but for the most part will be too similar to easily spot the difference. We aren't looking at a PS4 Pro vs X1X scenario, the gap is much closer this time.

 

[headspawn]

I think Capcom just really wants us all to wait until this shit goes on sale and save some money, that's my final takeaway here.

 

[R dott B]

That port doesn't look too hot.

 

[Jaypah]

You would think people would be happy, but your preffered console must be stronger. So something is wrong with the game, its not optimised its not patched. Both consoles are strong and not that far apart, so the sooner you deal with it the sooner you can enjoy the games instead of being frustrated.

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There are times where the PS5 version is significantly outperforming the XSX version. I don't think it's fanboy behavior to look at that and say something might not be right. It was my first thought and I have zero interest in an XSX.

 

[Mahonay]

I knew the 1.8TF gap wouldn't translate to anything in real life. Folks are looking at that 1.8TF gap with last gen goggles and not realizing that games are now way more demanding. 1.8TF with newer nextgen games is gonna be negligible.

In other words, both consoles are powerful beasts and will trade blows and have the upper hand in different areas but for the most part will be too similar.

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They'll definitely be close in performance. But this game also appears to be very poorly optimized for both systems. So it's more of a statement on the port quality than the consoles themselves.

 

[larryfox]

What can they do other than keep doing the great job they do for those of us who are interested and don't want to partake in console wars? The stupid people won't go away, sadly, they'd just look for their console wars info somewhere else.

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They go out of their way, especially in this video, to put things into context given the early state of these systems and just how close they are in this game overall. They're as much to blame for dumb posts as a single pic of a frame rate graph.

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Yeah I agree with both points, though I still don't believe they're completely blameless no matter how they try to put everything in context. Fans boys are annoying in every medium sadly and aren't going away DF should continue to do this and just make the best of it.

 

[Omnistalgic]

Slow down grasshopper.. this is just the beginning of the gen. specwise the X should almost always have better performance with third parties... this to me seems more like a bad port.

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Hmmmm...everything from b/c reports to just about every launch game is stating otherwise...I don't think the spec difference will result in any meaningful differences, definitely not enough for me to play 3rd parties on one machine over the other. Basically, If I need a DF video to show me the differences, to me, that's not meaningful. Like Sekiro is locked 60fps on PS5 and it drops to 57 on Series X (it was some specific reason for this DF stated I forgot). That's not a meaningful dip, and IMHO it's greatly exaggerated how much the average (read majority) console gamer would care about something so trivial. Sony's WWS have also produced the best looking games for 2 gens now, (again my opinion) with the weaker platform for the second half. It can't be all about specs, the games prove that.

 

[Abominuz]

The port is a mess across both systems. There's plenty to complain about here.

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Is not great i agree, but saying one console is a mess but the other is not. Because DF had plenty to say about issues on both.

 

[rntongo]

If you actually followed the tech threads, then you will know that everything you are seeing here (including the PS5 SSD) was expected.

On the SSD though, its as simple as this. The PS5 SSD should load data at about twice as fast. 2.11s vs 3.66s translates to about 2x as fast (1.7x faster to be exact) and that goes in line with what we expected.

But we also said though, that wouldn't seem like a lot if the game is loading in like 2 seconds on the PS5. It just means it loads in under or around 4 seconds on the XSX.

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Yeah the 2x I/O performance is constrained by the size of RAM. So its just a second difference in loading as we had all expected.

 

[aevanhoe]

Did people really expect PS5 will have dramatically better load times?
Did people really expect Series X will have dramatically better performance?

These consoles are really close. The difference is in content, basically Sony exclusives vs Game Pass. Both consoles are amazing, so - enjoy.

 

[rntongo]

After months and months of bickering and eating monsters for breakfast, this is it? And then Sony's ssd only netting a second difference in loading lmao

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Yup! As expected. The loading times are actually similar for both machines.

 

[Deleted member 46804]

Particularly when it's to the tune of literally 40+ additional FPS at points.

It wouldn't be the first Japanese-developed game that simply got less attention when it came to optimizing for the Xbox. Or as DF theorize, it may just be an API issue. Either way, I hope they put in the time to fix it.

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It wasn't even supposed to have RT at launch on the XSX. It is clear the PS5 is either ahead from an API perspective or it was the target platform with the XSX coming second. Either way it looks like a mess. Honestly devs should focus on getting one performance target perfect before they start adding additional graphics options. Not one of the modes here is where it should be.

 

[Yung Coconut]

Port looks like a complete mess on both systems and this is what you guys want to use for your console warring? lol

 

[chromatic9]

I knew the 1.8TF gap wouldn't translate to anything in real life. Folks are looking at that 1.8TF gap with last gen goggles and not realizing that games are now way more demanding. 1.8TF with newer nextgen games is gonna be negligible.

In other words, both consoles are powerful beasts and will trade blows and have the upper hand in different areas but for the most part will be too similar to easily spot the difference. We aren't looking at a PS4 Pro vs X1X scenario, the gap is much closer this time.

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Might be a bit early to hang our tassels on this one game FIREKNIGHT2029.

 

[Abominuz]

Slow down grasshopper.. this is just the beginning of the gen. specwise the X should almost always have better performance with third parties... this to me seems more like a bad port.

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Probably, but there is more to a console then 2TF more. It will be less noticable then last gen. I have no horse in this race because i already have the Series X and next week the PS5, but i think people where setting their expectations for the Series X to blow the PS5 out of the water. And that will not be the case. If the next comparisons show the same results you have a good raw indication for the rest of the gen.

 

[lost7]

Did people really expect PS5 will have dramatically better load times?
Did people really expect Series X will have dramatically better performance?

These consoles are really close. The difference is in content, basically Sony exclusives vs Game Pass. Both consoles are amazing, so - enjoy.

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I expect them to be close, but honestly I would wait before making any conclusions

 

[Sheng Long]

Port looks like a complete mess on both systems and this is what you guys want to use for your console warring? lol

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This. Don't think this port is indicative of anything between the two.

 

[Yung Coconut]

Probably, but there is more to a console then 2TF more. It will be less noticable then last gen. I have no horse in this race because i already have the Series X and next week the PS5, but i think people where setting their expectations for the Series X to blow the PS5 out of the water.

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Don't forget the SSD rhetoric either.

 

[mikehaggar]

This kind of reasoning is so stupid.

By your logic the difference between the XSX and PS5 is "bigger" than the difference between the SNES and the PS4.

Of course comparing things in RELATIVE terms rather than absolute terms without any kind of context makes more sense. Because that is how it will relate to performance. The difference between a SNES game and a PS4 game is going to be huge, the difference between PS5 and XSX will likely be imperceptible to most gamers.

Numbers without context are useless.

Click to shrink...

I'm actually arguing that percentages without context are useless. "Only 17% difference" does a great job of ignoring the fact that we are talking about 2TF of computing power which is significant. Surely you are not saying that 2TF is essentially meaningless...?

What? This doesn't make any sense then to NOT minimize the power difference?
- 3rd party will look very close
- First party will make the biggest difference
- Sony's studios for the past 2 gens now have had some of the best technical achievements from first party

On paper the gap is significant, in real world performance and games, it's not. That's the very reason the difference should be minimized? Unless I'm missing something?

Click to shrink...

3rd party will look close because they likely won't take the time to take full advantage of the extra power. Sony 1st parties are hard to beat due largely to talent I believe. That has zero to do with the actual power of the machines.

I believe his argument is that a proportional representation is more accurate than a pure TF representation, which actually rings true.

If a GPU at XTF can run a game at 50 fps a GPU with all parts +10% would be expected to run it at 55fps. Regardless of the additional amount of actual TF.

Click to shrink...

That's a simple, cherry-picked example. Let's consider a PS5 game that runs at a locked 60fps. Series X also runs it at 60fps then and has an additional 2TF of computing power to enhance the graphics. Better shadows, better particle effects, better post-processing effects, etc... Are we arguing you really can't accomplish much with 2TF of GPU compute power? If so, there's a lot of PS4 games that I'd like to show you for the first time...

 

[aevanhoe]

I expect them to be close, but honestly I would wait before making any conclusions

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I didn't make that conclusion based on this video.

Surely you are not saying that 2TF is essentially meaningless...?

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In practice? Eeeh....

It's more like - it depends on many factors. Like, it's not same to compare a 2TF system vs a 4TF system and a 10TF system vs a 12TF system. And Teraflops are not a great measurement for real life performance anyway.

 

[Korezo]

So how is the game graphically compared to last gens or pc? Any graphic enhancements other than raytracing... feels like nothing was talked about other than fps....

 

[VariantX]

Port looks like a complete mess on both systems and this is what you guys want to use for your console warring? lol

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For real. The fight is stupid to begin with and its even stupider to try to take this shitty hill of all the hills to take. So glad that these things are out now and the console wars are going to start dying down soon. In about a month or two no one is going to care to the extent that they do and the people who still wanna do this shit will be so small in number that they can easily just be put on ignore.

 

[jungomitis]

All I really learned from the video was that the DMC5: SE is poorly optimized for both consoles. I guess it'd be capped at 4k60 on my tv (because I don't have HDMI 2.1) which seems like a weird way of getting stable performance...

 

[Warrior of Light]

So if you don't have a 60 hz (cap) TV, you can't locked the game to 60 fps at all on PS5?

 

[tyfon]

So the xbox performs slightly faster without RT and the ps5 loads faster.
I think that's what everyone predicted.

I think the faster ROP of the ps5 is showing itself since the performance gap is not what it should have been if both were identical but the xbox had 2 tf more compute power.

 

[brawndolicious]

Port looks like a complete mess on both systems and this is what you guys want to use for your console warring? lol

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This game was already native 1080P and a locked 60 fps on the base PS4. The PS5 absolutely should be able to run it at 4K/120 (at least without RT) but it's not.

I don't know how much of this comes down to late development kits or lack of resources allocated by Capcom, but both versions perform terribly. It does seem that the XSX version has more to gain from optimization but who knows if Capcom already moved on to something else.

 

[Doctor Avatar]

I'm actually arguing that percentages without context are useless. "Only 17% difference" does a great job of ignoring the fact that we are talking about 2TF of computing power which is significant. Surely you are not saying that 2TF is essentially meaningless...?

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I'm saying it's a 17% difference. Which is what it is. That is the context

Games will perform 15-20% better on XSX cf PS5. As compared to games performing 40% better on PS4 cf XBO.

A 2 TF difference is less significant than a .5TF difference when you take those numbers into context.

Saying "isn't a 2TF difference huge" is meaningless without context. In a 2000TF and 2002TF machine it means literally nothing. The people trying to insinuate that we should expect PS4 vs XBO level differences because "the gap is bigger" are at best being ignorant and at worst being disingenuous.

Relative difference is the actual meaningful metric. Not absolute difference.

 

[VariantX]

This game was already native 1080P and a locked 60 fps on the base PS4. The PS5 absolutely should be able to run it at 4K/120 (at least without RT) but it's not.

I don't know how much of this comes down to late development kits or lack of resources allocated by Capcom, but both versions perform terribly. It does seem that the XSX version has more to gain from optimization but who knows if Capcom already moved on to something else.

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I'm going to put it down to lack of resources. DMC4 SE was a much bigger production on the part of capcom than this game is. They've already said as much that the new consoles essentially pushed them into doing it (they wanted something on the platforms at launch most likely) since they've long since heard the demand for Playable Vergil for quite some time.

 

[BadAss2961]

I don't really see how these are bad ports. Something's up with XBOX's high framerate mode. But other than that, performance is about in line with what you'd expect from the specs of these consoles.

RE Engine is very flexible and performs well across all kinds of different hardware.

 

[RivalGT]

Hmmmm...everything from b/c reports to just about every launch game is stating otherwise...I don't think the spec difference will result in any meaningful differences, definitely not enough for me to play 3rd parties on one machine over the other. Basically, If I need a DF video to show me the differences, to me, that's not meaningful. Like Sekiro is locked 60fps on PS5 and it drops to 57 on Series X (it was some specific reason for this DF stated I forgot). That's not a meaningful dip, and IMHO it's greatly exaggerated how much the average (read majority) console gamer would care about something so trivial. Sony's WWS have also produced the best looking games for 2 gens now, (again my opinion) with the weaker platform for the second half. It can't be all about specs, the games prove that.

Click to shrink...

In sekiro the frame rate fluctuates anywhere from 50 to 60 fps, depending how many enemies are on screen or how much alpha effects are happening.

Here in the video below you can see what happens when you fight more than 1 enemy.

Here's What the Xbox Series X Can Do To Uncapped Back Compat Games!

If you enjoyed this video don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel! Also comment down below some of your thoughts. Subscribe for more previews, inte...

youtu.be

 

[BadAss2961]

This game was already native 1080P and a locked 60 fps on the base PS4. The PS5 absolutely should be able to run it at 4K/120 (at least without RT) but it's not.

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Your expectations are too high. 4K/120fps is ridiculously demanding.

 

[PeaceSeeker]

not going to buy this special edition unless capcom makes a patch or until the mid gen upgrade.
I replayed the xbox one version with my xsx. The performance is very good. No obvious frame drop in cutscenes. games is very smooth.
Can definitely live without the version

 

[AmFreak]

That's a simple, cherry-picked example. Let's consider a PS5 game that runs at a locked 60fps. Series X also runs it at 60fps then and has an additional 2TF of computing power to enhance the graphics. Better shadows, better particle effects, better post-processing effects, etc... Are we arguing you really can't accomplish much with 2TF of GPU compute power? If so, there's a lot of PS4 games that I'd like to show you for the first time...

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Or you lower the resolution of the PS5 by ~20% and get your ~2TF back there, like it was done a million times with PS4/One ...

 

[ItIsOkBro]

This game was already native 1080P and a locked 60 fps on the base PS4. The PS5 absolutely should be able to run it at 4K/120 (at least without RT) but it's not.

I don't know how much of this comes down to late development kits or lack of resources allocated by Capcom, but both versions perform terribly. It does seem that the XSX version has more to gain from optimization but who knows if Capcom already moved on to something else.

Click to shrink...

the ps5 should be able to push 4x the pixels at 2x framerate? idk about that.

 

[R1CHO]

Uh wow.

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Dat secret sauce.