Got your nice, shiny new PS4 Pro, have you? Looking to play a cheeky bit of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition in native 4K resolution, are you? Well good for you, but our tech-headed friends over at Digital Foundry report that the remastered role-playing release actually suffers from more frame rate dips on Sony's supercharged console than it does on a regular PlayStation 4. Bethesdaaaaaa!
"It's fair to say that the boost in pixel count provides an immediate leap over the native 1080p base PS4 game, resolving more detail and definition across the game's rugged environments," writes the publication, getting the good news out of the way.
The article continues: "Sony emphasizes that games running on PS4 Pro must have frame-rates that are better than or equal to the game running on the standard PS4 console. However, that's not the case with Skyrim, where the increase in resolution can lead to a visible drop in performance in scenes where the GPU is pushed more heavily." Bugger.
Digital Foundry goes on to explain the situation in more depth: "Scenes that feature use of alpha-heavy effects cause frame-rates to deviate from the desired 30fps target. In like-for-like situations, the PS4 Pro game sees a 2-3fps deficit, resulting in more noticeable stutter compared to the title running on the standard PS4 console. The base PS4 performance isn't impacted to the same degree, with only a few 1-3fps drops cropping up on occasion across a general run of play."
Long story short, Skyrim doesn't play quite as smoothly on the Pro, despite the game looking absolutely crystal clear thanks to its native 4K resolution. It's perhaps a bit of a shame that Bethesda couldn't add in other visual options, like allow for 60 frames-per-second at a the cost of lowered visual quality, but we'll have to wait and see if the developer decides to patch anything in or attempt to fix these reported drops.
Would you rather have a more solid frame rate over such a high resolution? Let your voice be heard in the comments section below.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 13
'Sony emphasizes that games running on PS4 Pro must have frame-rates that are better than or equal to the game running on the standard PS4 console.' -will sony take action over this then or what?
Does it have any 1080p options for the Pro? Seems like a strange oversight if so.
i'd take solid locked framerate (whether it's 30 or 60) over graphical improvements anyday. how does skyrim fare at regular-HD on pro?.
@glassmusic It'll supersample on a 1080p screen, so it will look much sharper because the image is being shrunk from native 4K.
Just add 60 fps option without supersample bestheda
This was my biggest fear with the Pro. I hope it doesn't become a trend...
Hopefully they fix this issue, because I was really looking to playing this on my new 4KTV.
It does look better on my 1080 screen, but these frame drops are annoying. They better sort it!
This is why I cancelled my pro preorder.....The PS4 Normal can't run most games in 1080 60fps so how is a console that's bearly twice as powerful trying to run at 4K 30/60fps?? It's just not going to be able to do it, I don't see this game being the only game to mess up, Pro might run "VR" better but come on... the Graphics aren't really anything to jump about lmao.
Selling my PS4 Normal and then spending the extra £150/200 is a complete waste of money, I feel Sony have panicked due to Microsoft dropping the bomb about the Scorpio.
@Midzark Bearly twice as powerful? Its over twice as powerful.
For one its only dropping 1-3 frames at the most, which a lot of people will not even notice. And two this is Bethesda the same in house development team the made the original Skyrim, you know the one that was a unplayable on the PS3. Also the same in house development team that couldn't get there own DLC working on the PS3, until Sony stepped in that is.
@banacheck It's really quite bad compared to how it ran on the standard PS4. I am playing it on a 1080p TV and while the extra clarity from the supersampled 4K image is nice I'd much rather take the original resolution with the locked 30fps. Combat is choppier at the worst moments, menus are not loading as smoothly etc.
Pretty disappointed about this to be honest - I know it's only one game and not representative of how others will be (Infamous and Ratchet are great and perform beautifully) but I was really enjoying playing Skyrim as it was intended to be played and this is a real step back for me. Bethesda need to sort it out, either by way of an option to render at 1080p or other adjustments. There's no reason it should perform better on a standard PS4 than it does on a PS4 Pro.
@banacheck so how's Battlefield 1 and Fifa 17 going?? oO that's right there's no word of the update patch, which was promised on release date, also how's Final Fantasy going....yea I hear you that's broken too lmao.
I for one am very happy I cancelled my pre order, I will give it a couple of months to see if things start to change and companies pull there fingers out and fix/bring out the promised patches and then and only then I might think about selling my PS4 to upgrade, but if it's just 4K and a couple of extra "pretty" graphics I don't think I will bother.
Time will tell.
There some indication that newer games are running better on the Pro.
Older games that were Remastered are struggling for some reason, I guess that's better than the other way around.
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