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Digital Foundry: The Witcher 3 patch 1.03 performance analysis (PS4/XB1)

Teletraan1

Banned
So the two big budget marketing deal games that MS has both ended up performing better on their machine out of the literally hundreds of games that all went the other way. Three if you count the campaign for COD. Fishy as fuck. ;)

I will make sure I avoid any further titles close to launch on PS4 that involve any sort of MS marketing deals.
 

Bl@de

Member
Lazy devs at it again. smh

2/10 try harder

Weak hardware equals weak performance. Nothing lazy, nothing broken ...

A 1.8TF GPU, netbook CPU and 5GB shared RAM (3GB are reserved for the OS on PS4) give you this performance. They can lower resolution or settings (or turn of vsync) but there is no magic fairy optimization dust. If people want 1080p60fps in open world games ... well you know where you can find it ... But 400$ hardware gives you this kind of performance. It's the same across all systems.
 
I do not understand why it is double buffered. Why would they do that?



If it is double buffered, any drop at all should drop to 20 fps. They don't need to drop the res to get rid of that kind of drop.
Agreed. Personally, it feels like an amateurish decision.

Also, what could've been the reasoning for double buffering one version, and not the other?
 

thelastword

Banned
That is neither laziness, nor incompetence.

People here act like there is no priority in things we do. I'm sure with infinite resources and time all these things would be hammered out in one shot, but that is not how reality works.
I'll tell you of another reality, is that we pay $60.00 for these games. If it were free I'd agree with you.
 
That is neither laziness, nor incompetence.

People here act like there is no priority in things we do. I'm sure with infinite resources and time all these things would be hammered out in one shot, but that is not how reality works.

All we hear about from developers now is how they want to make the best possible versions on each platform they release on.
And then we get a version that performs significantly worse on one platform which is significantly more powerful than the other.
I stand by my comment. If one version gets less attention to performance than the others than thats laziness with regards to that platform. Otherwise its incompetence.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Agreed. Personally, it feels like an amateurish decision.

Also, what could've been the reasoning for double buffering one version, and not the other?
PS4 version is actually dipping into low 20's in these areas unlocked, so they felt a consistent 20fps would be preferable? Pretty much only thing I can think of, though that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't another explanation.
 

kinggroin

Banned
Than why is the ps4 version running at a lower framerate than the xbox one ?
Its bad development, probably a result of the ps4 version not getting as much attention.
Just because they put a lot of work into the scope and size of the game does not mean they didnt neglect the performance side of things on certain platforms.
Hence lazy.


Lazy should never be a description used for ANY part of the Witcher 3's development. Are fucking serious?

Its ambitious as anything else we've ever seen while looking absolutely amazing while running more than acceptably for the majority of gameplay time.

It runs about the same as the Xbox one version WHILE being a much higher resolution. They're gradually working through kinks and remaining performance issues so things will improve, but you're never going to have your cake and eat it too. Not with this game, not on consoles.

So many of you have incredibly unrealistic expectations of the hardware it makes me think you'd be better served just investing in PC hardware and stay upgrading.
 
2/10 try harder

Weak hardware equals weak performance. Nothing lazy, nothing broken ...

A 1.8TF GPU, netbook CPU and 5GB shared RAM (3GB are reserved for the OS on PS4) give you this performance. They can lower resolution or settings (or turn of vsync) but there is no magic fairy optimization dust. If people want 1080p60fps in open world games ... well you know where you can find it ... But 400$ hardware gives you this kind of performance. It's the same across all systems.

So why dont you explain how the xbox one (whose gpu is outperformed by 40 percent by the ps4 gpu) manages to run the game at a better framerate than the ps4 ?
Bad development.
 

ironcreed

Banned
I have put 70 hours into the PS4 version and the worst I have seen it was in the final stretch of the main story. It would stutter, stall and feel like a slideshow, but the rest of my time with the game has been fine outside some random dips here and there. That said, I think the game would have been better served being at 900p. I'll take a smoother ride any day over a resolution bump that the system struggles with.
 

Kalamoj

Member
For me the PS4 version is perfectly playable (sans the micro font size), but still think the 900p locked 30fps would be better.
I also have little faith in CDPR to fix this version.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
All we hear about from developers now is how they want to make the best possible versions on each platform they release on.
And then we get a version that performs significantly worse on one platform which is significantly more powerful than the other.
I stand by my comment. If one version gets less attention to performance than the others than thats laziness with regards to that platform. Otherwise its incompetence.
There is no reason why a PS4 game has to not only be higher resolution but also run better than the XB1 version on top of that. Could be the resolution difference just doesn't leave the PS4 version with enough headroom to get that last bit of performance up to par with XB1 versions.

And why are people saying PS4 version got less attention? As noted earlier, it's entirely possible it got equal treatment as XB1 version, but due to CDPR's experience and lead work on PC and DirectX, that they were able to get a bit more out of the XB1 than they could with the PS4 given the same amount of time to each.

I'm not saying this is all definitely what happened, but people should stop jumping to conclusions.
 
Lazy should never be a description used for ANY part of the Witcher 3's development. Are fucking serious?

Its ambitious as anything else we've ever seen while looking absolutely amazing while running more than acceptably for the majority of gameplay time.

It runs about the same as the Xbox one version WHILE being a much higher resolution. They're gradually working through kinks and remaining performance issues so things will improve, but you're never going to have your cake and eat it too. Not with this game, not on consoles.

So many of you have incredibly unrealistic expectations of the hardware it makes me think you'd be better served just investing in PC hardware and stay upgrading.

Just because they put a lot of work into the world/characters/mechanics of the game does not mean they put in the work they needed too to ensure that all platforms ran the game well.
They could have been lazy in that aspect of the games development.
 

ironcreed

Banned
So why dont you explain how the xbox one (whose gpu is outperformed by 40 percent by the ps4 gpu) manages to run the game at a better framerate than the ps4 ?
Bad development.

Perhaps the PS4 is not the beast many like to pretend it is and the differences between the systems off paper and in the real are panning out to not be all that significant.
 

thelastword

Banned
I don't believe this, the very first thing everybody noticed was the bad performance in cutscenes with double buffered vysnc, that's still not fixed. Recently we discovered the awful performance in the swamp areas again partly due the double buffered vysnc. How long do you anticipate this is going to get fixed if cutscenes are not fixed yet?

Now we discover that lod and loading is awful on consoles but even worse on PS4. I don't think anyone has much confidence in CDPR right now based on what they've done so far.
 

JAYSIMPLE

Banned
So why dont you explain how the xbox one (whose gpu is outperformed by 40 percent by the ps4 gpu) manages to run the game at a better framerate than the ps4 ?
Bad development.

I thought the xbox one versions suffers from lower resolution and less effects, poorer shadows? I could be wrong but I am sure i saw on here that people were saying there were less particle effects etc on the xbox one version?
 

Teletraan1

Banned
Lazy, Bad, Negligent, $$$ Constrained, Marketing $$$ doing work, game is perfection. It is all semantics. The unfinished product is here for all to see. They did a worse job on the PS4 version. Why? No one but CDPR knows for sure. Considering they were crowing about not having DX on PS4 earlier in development which is kind of embarrassing for a developer to say publicly they probably ran into issues there.
 

thelastword

Banned
PS4 version is actually dipping into low 20's in these areas unlocked, so they felt a consistent 20fps would be preferable? Pretty much only thing I can think of, though that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't another explanation.
Do you have a special PS4 version, because I've never seen it unlocked. Can you link a video where it's unlocked please.
 

JordanKZ

Member
So why dont you explain how the xbox one (whose gpu is outperformed by 40 percent by the ps4 gpu) manages to run the game at a better framerate than the ps4 ?
Bad development.

Going from 900p to 1080p is an extra 633,000 more pixels. That is a heck of a lot of extra rendering. A "40%" more powerful GPU isn't some linear performance thing.
 

kinggroin

Banned
Just because they put a lot of work into the world/characters/mechanics of the game does not mean they put in the work they needed too to ensure that all platforms ran the game well.
They could have been lazy in that aspect of the games development.

Overwhelmed is the word you want. CDPR being lazy would mean you guys wouldn't have had a single patch since launch. They aren't as big as Ubisoft, yet they're juggling a bigger game than anything Ubi has ever made across three platforms AND it performs better than that game.

Its going to take time on consoles to get things cleared up, especially when you have certification wait times.

And FYI, the game gets bogged down on EVERY hardware config during the swamp area. Consoles (yes even Xbox One) are being hit hardest, cause they are weakest.

And fuck almighty STOP with this 40% faster GPU bullshit. That's not a linear indicator for performance improvements across every game and every scenario. It doesn't work that way.
 

Bl@de

Member
So why dont you explain how the xbox one (whose gpu is outperformed by 40 percent by the ps4 gpu) manages to run the game at a better framerate than the ps4 ?
Bad development.

PS4 resolution has 44% more pixels. GPU has much more to do even if it's more powerful. CPU is faster in the XBox One. I don't know if the PS4 has higher settings (draw distance, textures ...) and different vsync, but that can explain the rest.
 
Perhaps the PS4 is not the beast many like to pretend it is and the differences between the systems off paper and in the real are panning out to not be all that significant.

A comment like this is willfully ignorant of the effects of a more powerful gpu on game performance.
Or do you think that when pc gamers upgrade there gpus they are doing it just because they cant decide whether flushing money down the toilet or burning it is a better option for entertainment?
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Do you have a special PS4 version, because I've never seen it unlocked. Can you link a video where it's unlocked please.
Somebody asked what could be the reason for choosing double buffered vsync. I offered a suggestion. I did not state that is exactly what is happening, although I could see how you think that if you didn't actually read what I responding to....

I don't think anyone has much confidence in CDPR right now based on what they've done so far.
Please speak for yourself and not for others.
 

ironcreed

Banned
Lazy, Bad, Negligent, $$$ Constrained, Marketing $$$ doing work, game is perfection. It is all semantics. The unfinished product is here for all to see. They did a worse job on the PS4 version. Why? No one but CDPR knows for sure. Considering they were crowing about not having DX on PS4 earlier in development which is kind of embarrassing for a developer to say publicly they probably ran into issues there.

The game is pretty damn ambitious and is still one of the greatest I have ever played. The attention to detail in the handcrafted world, the quest structuring and the writing is the best in the business. I am not about to nail them to the wall for such an accomplishment merely because of some performance hitches.
 

ironcreed

Banned
A comment like this is willfully ignorant of the effects of a more powerful gpu on game performance.
Or do you think that when pc gamers upgrade there gpus they are doing it just because they cant decide whether flushing money down the toilet or burning it is a better option for entertainment?

Yes, it certainly is stronger on paper and in raw numbers. But what I am seeing in real world performance over and over again is not amounting to squat. I have both systems and this huge power gap is just not there and sometimes the PS4 version is actually the one to suffer in certain areas. I am not willfully ignorant of anything, just looking at what is actually taking place instead of pointing out the differences on paper. Have fun with that.
 

Teletraan1

Banned
There is no reason why a PS4 game has to not only be higher resolution but also run better than the XB1 version on top of that. Could be the resolution difference just doesn't leave the PS4 version with enough headroom to get that last bit of performance up to par with XB1 versions.

And why are people saying PS4 version got less attention? As noted earlier, it's entirely possible it got equal treatment as XB1 version, but due to CDPR's experience and lead work on PC and DirectX, that they were able to get a bit more out of the XB1 than they could with the PS4 given the same amount of time to each.

I'm not saying this is all definitely what happened, but people should stop jumping to conclusions.

Other games have shown in the past that you can get roughly equal performance out of a PS4 at 1080p vs a XB1 at 900p. Hundreds of them. Vs only a few that have gone the other way. Nobody is seriously demanding the PS4 perform better than the XB1 version. Only equal.

It is a discussion forum. We don't have an insider at CDPR. Should this whole discussion forum be limited to just the OP with only insiders. If we all followed your mantra you wouldn't even be able to post on this forum because if there wasn't any seemingly misguided discussion happening you couldn't tell us all how we are jumping to conclusions in every thread ever with your own devils advocate fueled conclusion jumps. What makes your conclusions or hypothesis any more substantial? Nothing.
 

thelastword

Banned
Somebody asked what could be the reason for choosing double buffered vsync. I offered a suggestion. I did not state that is exactly what is happening, although I could see how you think that if you didn't actually read what I responding to....


Please speak for yourself and not for others.
That makes no sense and you know it. There's actual evidence showing that the XB1 version falls below 30fps in the swamps unlocked but it was never double buffered by the devs, says more about your angle than any suggestion of worth.

I mean, which developer believes locking a game at 20fps if it falls to 29 fps is a good idea, in which world is 20fps locked a good decision? Don't be so glaring Speed, you've been more subtle in the past.
 

emrober5

Member
Ps4 here. I honestly don't notice any drops unless I'm in combat with multiple enemies, but the texture pop in is absolutely horrible right now. That needs to get fixed asap.

Great game though.
 

Ushay

Member
A comment like this is willfully ignorant of the effects of a more powerful gpu on game performance.
Or do you think that when pc gamers upgrade there gpus they are doing it just because they cant decide whether flushing money down the toilet or burning it is a better option for entertainment?

That may be so, I guess everyone is expecting PS4 to be magnitudes better, when it simply isn't the case. Xbox achieved better frames with lower IQ, while PS4 had more processing power but they opted to use this for better IQ as opposed to performance. This trade off makes PS4 seem incapable, when it's actually processing a lot more on screen, it's a double edged sword really. If they lowered to 900/dynamic this would also make PS4 seem weaker than what it actually is.

Watching the side by sides, I honestly can't see much difference. Game look stunning.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Other games have shown in the past that you can get roughly equal performance out of a PS4 at 1080p vs a XB1 at 900p.
Other games are other games. There are more than just the rare game that not only has a higher resolution on PS4, but also runs better as well. In these situations, I've never seen anybody suggest that the XB1 version just didn't get the attention it deserved or that the developer was lazy and incompetent.

It's just not impossible that there'd be a situation where a change in resolution from 900p to 1080p doesn't leave enough headroom to maintain the same performance. I don't know if that's the case. But it would explain why double buffered vsync was chosen, so I offered it as a plausible suggestion.

It is a discussion forum. We don't have an insider at CDPR. Should this whole discussion forum be limited to just the OP with only insiders. If we all followed your mantra you wouldn't even be able to post on this forum because if there wasn't any seemingly misguided discussion happening you couldn't tell us all how we are jumping to conclusions in every thread ever with your own devils advocate fueled conclusion jumps. What makes your conclusions or hypothesis any more substantial? Nothing.
I have made no conclusions.

Anyways, discussion is fine. Complaints are fine. Speculation is fine. Excessive bashing and trashing of a game or a developer along with accusations of 'being lazy' or other conspiracies I consider to step well beyond what I would personal label a reasonable attitude on the subject.
 

bombshell

Member
Yes, it certainly is stronger on paper and in raw numbers. But what I am seeing in real world performance over and over again is not amounting to squat. I have both systems and this huge power gap is just not there and sometimes the PS4 version is actually the one to suffer in certain areas. I am not willfully ignorant of anything, just looking at what is actually taking place instead of pointing out the differences on paper. Have fun with that.

Squat? So all these 1080p vs. 900p games do not exist? The difference in number of pixels between these two resolutions almost lines up perfectly with the GPU power difference.
 
June 4th is 15 days after purchase at bestbuy. I'm getting my $10 reward cert and dumping this mess.

Maybe if they can figure it out I will jump back in but I can't play a game that runs as bad as this game does on PS4, on top of loading bugs and hard locks.
 
Yes, it certainly is stronger on paper and in raw numbers. But what I am seeing in real world performance over and over again is not amounting to squat. I have both systems and this huge power gap is just not there and sometimes the PS4 version is actually the one to suffer in certain areas. I am not willfully ignorant of anything, just looking at what is actually taking place instead of pointing out the differences on paper. Have fun with that.

The point is that with the power difference there is no reason for the ps4 version to run with worse performance than the xbox one version if they both are running the same assets and effects.
Its a developer fuck-up.
And maybe its because I used to game on pc but I noticed a clear difference between xbox one games and ps4 games while I owned an xbox one. (Owned one between Jan 2014 and September 2014 - the graphical/performance differences were not the reason I got rid of it btw).
 

Angel_DvA

Member
The struggle is real for "next gen" consoles for their first next gen game...

The PS4 version look better when The Xbox One version perform better, no win situation for one console here, in fact the real winner is the PC as always.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
That makes no sense and you know it. There's actual evidence showing that the XB1 version falls below 30fps in the swamps unlocked but it was never double buffered by the devs, says more about your angle than any suggestion of worth.

I mean, which developer believes locking a game at 20fps if it falls to 29 fps is a good idea, in which world is 20fps locked a good decision? Don't be so glaring Speed, you've been more subtle in the past.
Not sure what doesn't make sense to you. Yes, the XB1 drops to the mid 20's unlocked. But if the PS4 was dropping slightly more than that, say to the low 20's, then capping it to a consistent 20fps may have actually been preferable.

You seem to be running under the assumption that the PS4 drops wouldn't be any worse than the XB1 drops. It is entirely possible your assumption is correct, but we don't know that at all, and it would make the decision to use double buffered vysnc very strange. Hence me trying to think of a plausible explanation for its use.

Don't know what you're talking about with being glaring or subtle, either. Believe it or not, not everybody participates in these discussions with an agenda to push.
 

Ysiadmihi

Banned
It's too bad people still fight tooth and nail against graphics options in console games. A choice between 900p/1080p and maybe the addition of a "Low Quality" mode might do wonders for this game on PS4.
 

kinggroin

Banned
Squat? So all these 1080p vs. 900p games do not exist? The difference in number of pixels between these two resolutions almost lines up perfectly with the GPU power difference.

And? Are you expecting exactly 40% performance improvement as a result? Also, do CPUs and APIs no longer matter? What about development environment? Maybe developer familiarity with an architecture? What about assistance from hardware manufacturers?

Catching on?


The difference in performance between Xbox One and PS4 in this game (watch the head to head video) isn't big enough to suggest foul play or laziness. More like the variables mentioned above playing a role.
 

ironcreed

Banned
Squat? So all these 1080p vs. 900p games do not exist? The difference in number of pixels between these two resolutions almost lines up perfectly with the GPU power difference.

Let me put it this way. What I see and feel when playing on each system has been so similar that I would feel like a madman were I to stop and split hairs over it. 900p vs 1080p to me does not amount to a hill of beans and sometimes the PS4 even suffers for trying to push it further. As we are seeing here.
 

thelastword

Banned
That may be so, I guess everyone is expecting PS4 to be magnitudes better, when it simply isn't the case.
Everytime a game performs worse on the PS4 (the more powerful console), we always hear the same arguments. (PS4 is not as powerful as you think), the consoles are weak, despite the majority of games having a better resolution with better framerate and better effects on the PS4 over the XB1, yes, in similar games.

And NO, the resolution is not what's causing the PS4 to have worse load times, worse water, worse textures due to lod and worse performance due to an asinine double buffered implementation and generally bad optimization in many other areas.

No matter how many games show that the PS4 can easily outpace the XB1 with better resolution, better effects and better framerate, people are just waiting for one bad port to beat their drums, reference the re-r2 faceoff or the re-remake faceoff, it's like clockwork and really shows how disingenuous some people can be.
 
Yes, it certainly is stronger on paper and in raw numbers. But what I am seeing in real world performance over and over again is not amounting to squat. I have both systems and this huge power gap is just not there and sometimes the PS4 version is actually the one to suffer in certain areas. I am not willfully ignorant of anything, just looking at what is actually taking place instead of pointing out the differences on paper. Have fun with that.

To Be Fair Some Ports Do Offer Huge Advantage, Perject cars, mgs, evil within,,first battlefield,far cry 4.
 
We've had two games, Far Cry 4 and GTA5, that have both removed graphical effects with post-release patches, god rays and tessellation/waving trees, with the usual GAFfers proclaiming it's due to power issues of the consoles, only to then be told by devs it was oversights and those features put back in later patches.

Yet everyone still keeps proclaiming power issues whenever issues arise on newly released games, when it's more likely oversights by over-worked developers working with extremely completed game codes.
 

omonimo

Banned
Not sure what doesn't make sense to you. Yes, the XB1 drops to the mid 20's unlocked. But if the PS4 was dropping slightly more than that, say to the low 20's, then capping it to a consistent 20fps may have actually been preferable.

You seem to be running under the assumption that the PS4 drops wouldn't be any worse than the XB1 drops. It is entirely possible your assumption is correct, but we don't know that at all, and it would make the decision to use double buffered vysnc very strange. Hence me trying to think of a plausible explanation for its use.

Don't know what you're talking about with being glaring or subtle, either. Believe it or not, not everybody participates in these discussions with an agenda to push.
I don't think locked 20 fps it's preferable in any case. That's a sort of problem with the double buffer setting. Even slightly higher variable 20 fps it's surely better to locked 20 fps, for the human eye. I can't imagine what a fucking hell would been a similare choice in the ps360 generation.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
To Be Fair Some Port Do Offer Huge Advantage, Perject cars, mgs, evil within, and first battlefield, lately not so much though.
Which goes to show the 'gap' between two versions of a game is not something that will be, or has to be, exactly the same for every game ever.

As I said before, I've never seen anybody suggest that when a PS4 version of a game does *more* than just have a better resolution over an XB1 version, that it was because the developers were lazy, just didn't give enough attention to XB1 version, or are incompetent. Never seen it. So why does it all the sudden have to be the case here? Obviously the gaps between games is variable and dependent on more than just on-paper differences.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
I don't think locked 20 fps it's preferable in any case. That's a sort of problem with the double buffer setting. Even slightly higher variable 20 fps it's surely better to locked 20 fps, for the human eye. I can't imagine what a fucking hell would been a similare choice in the ps360 generation.
If the drops were only to mid 20's like on XB1 then I'd be inclined to agree, but if the drops are more than that, then we're probably not in a position to say which is preferable without actually trying it. And even then, it may be a matter of preference and therefore just a judgemental call.

I don't know. It's a difficult one. Hopefully a bit of time will clear some things up so it's less of an issue.
 

thelastword

Banned
Which goes to show the 'gap' between two versions of a game is not something that will be, or has to be, exactly the same for every game ever.

As I said before, I've never seen anybody suggest that when a PS4 version of a game does *more* than just have a better resolution over an XB1 version, that it was because the developers were lazy, just didn't give enough attention to XB1 version, or are incompetent. Never seen it. So why does it all the sudden have to be the case here? Obviously the gaps between games is variable and dependent on more than just on-paper differences.
And you will never see it, because any sane or truthful person would realize that it's because the XB1 is much weaker than the PS4. In that light, no game should ever perform worse on the PS4. XB1 looking and performing worse is an expectation based on the hardware and the multitudes of games which back the difference in power with noted tangible differences.
 
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