Resident Evil Village releases officially tomorrow, but the team at Digital Foundry has had their hands on all console versions of the game prior to release. The results seem to suggest the Xbox Series X version has some advantages over others, but the Xbox Series S suffers in some departments.
Right off the bat, the most impressive news is that the Xbox Series X version maintains near to 60FPS while ray tracing is enabled, despite the specifications stating that it would only reach 45FPS. According to Digital Foundry, the Xbox Series X holds a small performance lead in that regard. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the Xbox Series S version. The demo analysis highlighted some substantial frame drops, and the full game is said to still have "profound performance difficulties".
"All versions of the game target high frame-rates and run fully unlocked. PS5 and Series X spend most of the time at or near to 60fps even with RT enabled (with a small but noticeable performance lead on the Microsoft machine) but Series S has profound performance difficulties here, despite reducing resolution from a reconstructed 2160p down to 1440p. In terms of visual features, they're otherwise identical.
Turning off RT brings Series S much closer to a locked 60fps, while PS5 and Series X just power through the entire game with no frame-drops whatsoever - certainly not in our testing."
However, the PlayStation 5 seems to boast improved loading times. While the loading screens found in Resident Evil Village on Xbox Series X and S are "much shorter than Resident Evil 7 ever was", they're still there. On the other hand, the PlayStation 5 seems to have eliminated them entirely, giving Sony a lead over Xbox in that area.
"But of course, frame-rate is not the only performance measurement - RE Village also highlights a difference in loading. On Xbox Series X or Series S, when you load up a save, return to the menu or begin a Mercenaries match, you're met with a relatively short loading screen followed by a button prompt. It's much shorter than Resident Evil 7 ever was but it's there. On PlayStation 5, however, loading screens are completely eliminated, replaced with a short dip to black."
All in all, Digital Foundry says this is one of the closest comparisons they've ever seen. Even the Xbox Series S version, which suffers from some issues, is "pretty good too in terms of image quality and performance" - just make sure you disable ray tracing. While it may not be the best course of action to enable the shiny feature on Xbox Series S, it sounds like no matter which version you pick up, you're going to be in for a good time.
Happy with the performance of Resident Evil Village? Let us know in the comments below.
[source eurogamer.net, via youtube.com]
Comments 15
Well will either wait till it's patched for series s or wait till I manage to get a ps5
VRR is the game changer.
I have a series X and PS5 and really struggling to decide which to pick it up on. So far this gen, the Dualsense controller has been the deciding factor. Best controller ever made, in my opinion.
@AgentGuapo
Me to not sure, the dualsense did not seem to be used that well in this particular game when I tried the demo, not like Astro bots.
Will probably go series x, as it seems to be by go to console for multiplatform titles, with the slight fps advantage and VRR on my QLED.
Such tough decisions 😂.
@Dezzy70 that’s a shame, but to be expected from a multi-plat title I guess. Too bad… Returnal is the only game that has rivaled Astros Playroom so far. But I also prefer the feel of the dualsense over the Xbox controller. Slightly prefer. I’m really annoyed Sony hasn’t implemented VRR yet on the PS5… would make this decision easier.
@AgentGuapo
Sony and VRR never seems to happen.
Their new A90J very expensive top of range 2021 OLED does not come with VRR, supposed to get an update later. But I would not hold my breath, especially with their tv updates.
That’s why I moved away from Sony TVs.
I go either LG or Samsung now, both VRR since 2019/2020.
@Dezzy70 I have an LG CX so…. Come on, Sony! Microsoft has had this for years!
PS5 loading is impressive here BUT its also something MS could "fix" with a faster "external" SSD card.
I dont care about the loading times, at least when there is a comparison between PS5 and SX. Since on SX we also have a very short loading times. I dont mind waiting 4 or 5 seconds more.
@AgentGuapo
Very good tv, four hdmi 2:1 and VRR.
We could be waiting a while for either PS5 VRR or new 2021 Sony tv VRR.
Would not surprise me if either never got them.
I hope this doesn't become a consistent thing with Series S. I really don't want to see the system phased out as it's a fantastic machine for the money.
@Axlroselm that’s a good point. To be honest, both machines handle loading extremely well. That said, I’ve been spoiled by the basically non existent load times in Demons Souls and Returnal… such an amazing quality of life issue I’m glad is basically 99% resolved this gen.
@__jamiie likely, we’ll just see the series S get 1080p/60 rasterized games where as the series X will get 4K/60 RT games. Not sure why capcom even offered the RT version for the series S here.
@The_New_Butler yup well it’s interesting to through series S in the mix but yeah.
@abe_hikura This game doesn’t leverage the next-gen storage API (Velocity Architecture) on Xbox Series consoles. Once games start utilising those APIs like Direct Storage, Sampler Feedback etc the loading will be near-instantaneous on Xbox Series and PC.
https://youtu.be/n0sMmt-rSzQ
It’s like in the Village demo where neither of these console versions were utilising the next-gen storage APIs so the loading times were very close between each other.
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