On paper, the Xbox Series X is a considerably more powerful piece of hardware than PlayStation 5, so why are we looking at a console generation where the Sony and Microsoft machines often deliver like-for-like results? It’s a puzzle that has confounded many over the last few years and after discussions with multiple sources, including some of the highest profile triple-A developers in the business, we finally have some answers – and it’s all laid out in this week’s edition of DF Direct Weekly.
In terms of technical specifications, Xbox Series X is undoubtedly the most powerful console on the market – at least until the mooted PlayStation 5 Pro arrives. Its GPU hits 12 teraflops, augmented by a handsome amount of memory bandwidth: a max of 560GB/s. PlayStation 5? 10.23TF of GPU compute is available, fed by 448GB/s of bandwidth. It’s a clear divide then. If we were to see that spec comparison in the PC space, you’d expect to see the former handily outperform the latter.
Except that hasn’t happened this generation. By and large, it’s the closest console generation we’ve ever seen and in the bulk of multi-platform releases, the differences are fairly minimal. One machine may outperform the other, or vice versa. Sometimes where there are differences, it comes down to variances in dynamic resolution scaling – which often looks invisible in A to B comparisons. It’s a far cry from the Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro face-off, where the Microsoft machine commanded an obvious advantage – or the PS4 vs Xbox One comparison, where Sony typically held a similarly noticeable lead.
0:00:00 Introduction0:02:00 News 01: FSR 3.1 first look!0:10:56 News 02: Dead Rising remake in development0:22:55 News 03: Dragon’s Dogma 2 patched0:30:12 News 04: Project Keystone details revealed0:38:16 News 05: Forza Horizon 4 to be delisted0:49:38 News 06: SGSSAA appears in new game0:58:46 News 07: Unity 50Hz physics issue returns1:07:55 Supporter Q1: Why haven’t more reviewers noted the issues with Elden Ring? And is it really fair to pile so much technical criticism on From Software?1:27:03 Supporter Q2: What should our expectations be for a potential PS3 emulator on PS5?1:36:05 Supporter Q3: Why is the Series X still sometimes outperformed by the PS5 in cross-platform games?1:45:54 Supporter Q4: Could something like Auto SR be implemented on consoles for backwards compatible games?1:50:00 Supporter Q5: Why do low settings in games look a lot better than they used to?
So, after a few years of conversations with developers, what’s the explanation? How can a less capable machine outperform the more powerful one? As seen recently in our Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree coverage, the frame-rate difference in favour of PS5 is surprising, bearing in mind it’s apparently the less capable machine.