Digital Foundry decided to do a performance analysis of EA Sports UFC's demo for the PS4 and Xbox One. The results will surprise no one, save for one important facet.
EA had originally touted 1080p and a hard-lock of 30fps for the Xbox One and PS4. The engine was supposedly running the simulation at 60fps but the actual game is rendering only 30fps in order to make good on what Digital Foundry calls “per object motion blur”.
Well, you know how it was reported on sites like IGN that EA Sports UFC was running 1080p? Well, that's not the case at all.
Digital Foundry did a performance analysis of the game and found that both consoles are running only 1600 x 900p, upscaled to 1080p. In my own personal opinion it looked like there were variable resolutions between the vignettes and the actual game (with the vignettes looking higher-res), but it could have been LOD, post-processing or MSAA at work.
Anyway, Digital Foundry notes that there is frame-stutter in the game... but not in the Xbox One version. Interesting. They felt that there were actually stutters happening in-game for the PS4 (take note that I didn't experience any in-game frame-stuttering on the Xbox One version, but did notice the drops during the pre/post round vignettes and replays).
30fps with any sort of frame-drops during in-game play – for a fighting game at that – is practically unacceptable. In a game like EA Sports UFC any frame disparity is the difference between winning and getting flash K.O'd. And yes, you can get flash K.O'd.
The real difference comes into play with the game's graphical nuances. Once again the PlayStation 4 edges out the Xbox One with higher resolution shadows, better light and color saturation, as well as better motion blur than the Xbox One. According to Digital Foundry, John Linneman wrote...
“Comparatively, the effect is remarkably clean and mostly artefact-free on PS4. The potent mix of high-quality anti-aliasing and high-precision motion blur allows the PS4 version to shine in ways where Xbox One feels a tad lacking.”
Once again, we have the PS4 edging out over the Xbox One in a multiplatform title, just like with Watch Dogs and Battlefield 4 in previous comparison tests.
The thing that stands out the most to me is still the fact that it's 900p. Essentially, a game this early on – and a fighting game at that – appears to be maxing out the consoles so much sooner than expected. Brian Hayes wasn't lying about maxing out the new-gen twins' capabilities.
This certainly doesn't bode well for the future of the eighth-gen consoles if you were expecting “wow”-worthy graphics and a big scale in visual fidelity as we move further into the new generation.
As for EA Sports UFC,I doubt that it's going to get patched up to 1080p unless they can find a way to quickly optimize and stabilize the frame-rate first and foremost. Given today's trend of day-one patches, I wouldn't put it past EA to slip a fast one by.
The game is due for release on June 17th in two weeks for the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. Need to learn more? Head on over to the official website.
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