Digital Foundry Confirms GTA 5 Framerate, Asset Issues For Xbox 360, PS3

There are two reputable sources most gamers turn to when comparing video game footage, gameplay, performance and graphics analysis: Lens of Truth and Digital Foundry. The latest entry in the reputed site's quickly-expanding catalog of high-profile games includes none other than the most anticipated game of the seventh gen of gaming: Grand Theft Auto V.

Digital Foundry's exhaustive comparison brings out a couple of things that we brought out in our offhand observation of GTA V, though DF seems to have encountered a few less problems than what we spotted from the leaked footage.

One of the things they make abundantly clear is what some of us expected when Rockstar warned gamers not to install both Xbox 360 discs: The console simply cannot handle the asset streaming as it tries to pull too much data at one time and does a piss poor job of it all the way around.

The other problem noticed is that the 360 has slightly lower texture resolution in some places – as it was pointed out by many gamers when they watched the live-stream footage – giving an almost infinitesimal edge to the PS3.

Both consoles maintain a high-average of around 30fps, but as the video below demonstrates, both consoles also run into problems where – as it was mentioned in our own article – the game dips below 30fps and sometimes as low as 20fps during some of the more hectic, non-scripted sequences.

Digital Foundry does note that the game still looks quite nice for a seventh generation title and runs at acceptable frame-rates throughout most of the experience. They even note that at times the Xbox 360 version of the game peaks just above 30fps while the PS3 version seems to be capped at 30fps.

Everyone across the board seems to agree that GTA V most certainly does run better than GTA IV on home consoles and provides more stable frames-per-second and LOD caching for fewer instances of asset pop-in. The draw distance is also something worth noting, as Rockstar has done a fantastic job of giving the game a great sense of scope from various, scenic viewpoints scattered throughout the game.

Nevertheless, it still needs to be made abundantly clear that what people bought and what people are playing right now is still not the definitive version of the game. The original trailers and some of the press shots still depict a game of a much higher fidelity, including solid frames during hectic scenarios and higher detailed, anti-aliased models with anisotropic texture filtering.

While Rockstar has not confirmed a PC or next-gen release, some startling evidence that got their legal teams on our arse does suggest that a higher quality version of Grand Theft Auto V may be on the way for the bigger, better systems.