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Digital Foundry: Sea of Thieves Goes Multi-Plat: PS5 and Xbox Series X/S Tested!

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?



Sea of Thieves is coming to PlayStation 5 and with a beta test running last weekend, we had a chance to take look at the near-final build for the Sony console, to see how it looks and runs compared to Xbox Series X. And as we never covered the Series-native upgrade for Microsoft consoles, this was a good time to check that out too - and there are even some Xbox One X/PC head-to-heads in there too.

00:00 Overview
00:43 Visual Settings Comparison
05:42 Performance
08:55 Graphical Features and Conclusion
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
- Like Hi-Fi Rush, the shadows look different / sharper on PS5
- DF not sure whether it's difference in resolution or filtering
- PS5 has distant draw distance LoD advantage for some foliage / trees

- Both PS5 / SX run at 2160p with no AA (No TAA)
- Series S is 1080p and has more aliasing but visual features match
- Shadow maps are lower resolution with smaller distance on Series S

- One X and Series X render the same resolution
- One X can actually have slightly sharper shadows compared to SX at times
- One X is locked at 30 while SX has a 60 / 120 h mode

- SX can have one-off single frame time dips which are likely network related
- Series S and PS5 are more or less the same with minor one off blips
- PS5 ran into an instance of locked 0 FPS for a long stretch which needed a game reboot
- Also crashed during DF testing which may be because of it being in the beta period

- 120hz FPS mode is present but DF were not able to test on PS5 in time for the beta
- On SX, the resolution drops to 1080p with frequent dips from a locked 120hz
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
-No frame-time blips.


I'd say this is a pretty major frame time blip


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Steve Harvey Wow GIF by NBC
 

Darsxx82

Member
It's as if MS said: "Well, what matters now is that the PS5 versions sells as much as possible, we are going to give reasons for this and show that we are not boycotting as Sony and the FTC accused us"...

Jokes aside, these ports are largely being handled by contracted external studios, so it may just come down to slightly different choices in optimization or details. The problem is that the XS versions receive no interest in updating/improving those "details" vs de original release and that denotes a lack of tact on the part of MS towards its users. Once again.
 
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Radical_3d

Member
It's as if MS said: "Well, what matters now is that the PS5 version sells as much as possible, we are going to give reasons for this and show that we are not boycotting as Sony and the FTC accused us"

Through this, the XS versions receive no interest in updating/improving those "details".

Whatever it is, it is clear that MS understands that these situations do not affect the image of the brand and the morale of its users of its own console.🙃
IDK, I feel like the majority of their user base have both consoles like me. Their sales suggest that they didn’t break through the hardcore niche, and that kind of guys have many entertainment devices.

BTW they should add TAA to both Xbox and PS. I prefer 1800p with AA to 4K with no AA.
 
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Killer8

Member
On one hand it is commendable that MS aren't gimping these releases on PS5 and are actually improving them over the Series X version.

On the other hand it is totally baffling that MS are not only allowing these games to go to a rival console, but to also be better on the rival console. It's a PR nightmare brewing ("why buy an Xbox when I can just wait to get the better version on my PS5?") that is only paving the way for them going fully third party.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
On one hand it is commendable that MS aren't gimping these releases on PS5 and are actually improving them over the Series X version.

On the other hand it is totally baffling that MS are not only allowing these games to go to a rival console, but to also be better on the rival console. It's a PR nightmare brewing ("why buy an Xbox when I can just wait to get the better version on my PS5?") that is only paving the way for them going fully third party.

Eh. Nobody’s waiting years to play a game because of virtually imperceptible visual differences.

If anyone’s waiting, it would be the existence of the port itself that drives that.
 
Although it has been shown that Microsoft's own games work practically the same on both consoles, there are still those who say that the Series X is 50-100% more powerful than the PS5
 

sigrad

Member
Only reason these games have slightly better anything is because they know how to handle these systems better now. It's just lazy devs and idiotic QC that let these games release in a SLIGHTLY better state on a console that it is clearly less powerful console. Whoever is running the QC side of Xbox is either really really dumb and can't see a difference or just doesn't give a shit about quality.
 
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onQ123

Member
It's hilarious that former Xbox console exclusives are better on PS5.
The Story Continues




OJA1e7r.png
 

bender

What time is it?
The Story Continues




OJA1e7r.png

bender-onq.jpg
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
Not unexpected that a much later port gets a bit better after the devs have years of working on the game under their belt.

What’s expected is that MS/Rare brings these improvements to the Xbox client. Minor PR stumble otherwise.
Nope... this excuse doesn't cut it. It's a port to a different platform to begin with, so there is a learning curve there. But more importantly, we have seen much later ports in the opposite direction, from PS5 to XSX which had the XSX version be worse.
 
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