A Plague Tale: Requiem Performance Review PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S vs PC

Sobo studios are a relatively small team But they made a huge impact with 2019's A plague tale innocence not content with Making a high quality visual production That stands up to much bigger teams they Also built it within their own propriety Technology shipped across PC last and Current generation with an update 60 FPS Mode very close to launch and the French Studio has not been idle in the time Between shipping one of the big Xbox Exclusives in Microsoft flight simulator They're back with the sequel her Requiem That has improved on almost all areas of The previous title well almost The style of game that both plagues Tales are is well inside the third Person linear story Adventure like the First it contains puzzles some action Which has been increased here with the Mesia's combat skills being more deadly Than before but clandestine beats Conflict as your chose form of Progression as such expect the same Linear exploration invisible walls However the team have managed to improve The engine to allow a wider scope of Level design and more than one clear Route through many encounters when it Comes to Performance the game only has a Single mode across all consoles and that Is with a 30 FPS Target well depending On your screen of choice but we'll come To that later the visual upgrades are

Evident from the kickoff with the trees Rocks and movement of the world far Richer and more voluptuous than before In addition the color palette and tone Is far more vibrant now as the Locale Has changed this also works as a Dichotomy to the horror and Dread that Unfolds the team's use of qixel textured Asset scans would have greatly aided Their three-year development window Between games and it also raises the Quality significantly with Parallax Occlusion Maps used across the game Heavy density on Floors rocks carts Buildings trees they all have very high Geometric density material detail micro Facets and certainly evoke an authentic And rustic world to explore the amount Of foliage drawn in any scene is Significantly higher than on previous Titles and stands up impeccably with Significantly larger teams character Models are also improved with higher Bone density on facial animations Allowing better emotions and improved Physically based shading helps the Visible identity of each surface Properties skin is diffuse and with Subsurface scattering present in Light Shadows and torch light bounces off skin With beautiful fennel lighting and then Reflective when wet or blood covered Decals draw in on characters for dirt Infection or worse and leather cloth

Metal all has a distinct and accurate Level of rendering to convince you of Each and stands clear as an increase Over their previous title in innocence One of the biggest is The Game's Global Illumination compounded with excellent Screen space Shadows mixed with cascaded Shadow Maps and ambient occlusion or Caligulate into this very solid and Vivid world as light bleeds through Cracks in Windows or open doorways it Then causes dark recesses of a castle Turret to light Bouncing Around The Brick doorway of a castle entrance it Never looks anything less than a Medieval oil painting and it moves Equally as graceful Animation is one of the hardest areas That can make or break the cell and the Team have also stepped up their game Here both Hugo and emesia have a wider Range of movement a better level of Interacting with their surroundings and Emotive expressions and vowel formation Is now much better weaker moments can Still crop up Shores such as clunky Blends between Cycles incorrect Alignment are more than one actor within A move set such as melee but repetition Can also creep in with door openings Being used very often and identical Takedowns and other often used actions Quickly becoming routine now it would Have made a huge Improvement if the team

Could have created some offsets to these To give a wider variety to them or Create three or four set actions that Could be dynamically shifted between or Even Blended during motion as per the Last game it is much better than before But it must also be noted that animation Is still one of the most intensive and Laborest elements to games and even CGI Entirely with the sheer quality on offer Here being Leaps and Bounds above their Previous titles and much bigger Studios Nobody will attack us here Hugo this Town is under the protection of the Count of Provence he's a very powerful Lord I must say this is beautiful another Fact improving the quality is the Resolution which sees a big bump over Last generation but a smaller one based On current gen updates to innocence both PlayStation 5 and series X Run the game At a fix from all my accounts at least 2560 by 1440 adding to this is The Game's strong temporally accumulated Anti-aliasing which also runs a Reconstruction algorithm to restore Multiple frames of data via motion Vectors and previous pixel data into a Final 3840 by 2160 frame in reality Though this only results to that when It's pretty static but the AAA does help Improve those sub pixel elements and Fine detail when motion is low enough

The game's strong post-process suite Though can also work against this such As when heavy Bloom is using the title Often as you can see here the flags Almost disappear when you move and then Reappear when the camera stops again Moving the camera in small movements Such as thin elements around the hair Can also be seen with a stifle that Divided rendering effect and it leaves Trails behind the character it's never Unsightly but in high contrast elements Such as against sky and dark hair the Noise can be noticed due to all this Though the image is largely a very Stable one and does not Shimmer at all Or at least very little but this title Is again a soft one with high frequency Elements really getting smudged and low Frequency elements becoming very blurry Indeed and it can end up looking quite Filmic in that regard that is obviously An intention by the team though the Caveat here is DRS may also be in use But I didn't count anything lower than 1440p the series s comes in with a Significant reduction on that as Expected and is the same as last Generation 60fps update of a 1600 by 900p Target again targeting 30 FPS Unless you have a different screen in Addition the TAA reconstructs where it Can back to 1920 by 1080 final buffer But it only is as good as that final

Static image and therefore that lower Base data resolution it runs from does Mean this version has more artifacting Flickering and is much softer overall Than the other two consoles due to the Fact that it has less than half the Pixels but again once you are playing For a while this Fades away and you get The same high quality details characters And materials the level of detail is Reduced on Series S over PlayStation 5 And series XO with a shorter range of Grass and trees being drawn in both Locally and in the distance reduced Level of density and light for light Shots does Stand Out lot is lower than The PC's lowest in fact ambient Occlusion is significantly reduced Shadows are low resolution SSR is lower And even hair strands and lighting can Be lower or changed from other consoles And side by side this does show up Clearly that the cutbacks are not that Intrusive and all aim to reduce the Pressure on the console smaller Ram Bandwidth and GPU performance levels Which means it should all pay off on That FPS graph compared to PC series X And PlayStation 5 our identical bars on Random decals and such areas appear to Use a mixture of medium and high Overalls such as depth of field being Better than the PC medium but not quite Ultra lot again also appears to be

Dynamic with it mostly matching medium On Console but it can at times be very Close to high or at least somewhere in Between medium and high Shadows are Medium and volumetrics are also closest To medium Foreign Foreign Foreign With my optimal settings here being Pretty much identical within reason at Least to what I can check to match the Console settings and thus unsurprisingly They become my recommended settings for Your PC irrespective you can gain back Around 10 to 12 on the ultra settings Here with minimal impact in close zoomed Up areas as you can see on screen there Are certainly some reductions in terms Of detail of nearby objects on the low Settings at least reduction of Shadow Map Cascades LOD off into the distance But overall it's a pretty close balance Between Shadows certainly have the Biggest impact in terms of visual Quality and depth of field is Surprisingly at the high setting which Can be quite impactful to a region of About five to six percent going down to Medium so they've definitely balanced Here in terms of their artistic choice And that explains why the game targets 30 FPS with an optional 40 FPS mode Which we can use to compare against PC

In the performance section Yes As noted the game has a 30 FPS mode on a Standard 60hz screen at least and across All three consoles they do a Predominantly successful job of hitting That Target I did know a handful of Points on PlayStation 5 and Series S That could dip just below 30 or be it Briefly largely though you will play Through the 30fps mode with no Performance dips or bad frame pacing Aside one area tearing this can crop up In this mode and thus on some areas it Can tear quite heavily data and or CPU Hitches can also cause performance Stutters and the PlayStation 5 is Affected the most by this with some Sections giving us 80 to 160 millisecond Pauses this is not to resolve with the 40fps mode which is simply activated if You have 120 hertz screen for series X And Series S you will need to go into The operating system menu and then set Your output to 120 hertz the PlayStation 5 is easier in that so long as you have 120 hertz setting in the operating System menu to Auto then the game will Simply detect it it and set the output To 40 FPS as you see here the problem is That certainly for the PlayStation 5 Version in the current build at least The 30 FPS is the more consistent Performing option as you can see the

PlayStation 5 can be approximately 10 FPS slower at points than the series X In like for light conditions and most of The time the difference is small around Two to eight percent but in worst case Scenarios it can be 35 faster on series X which is drastically higher than Anything you would expect and these are Brief and mostly caused by huge stutters At the PlayStation 5 suffers from Certainly on camera Cuts data being Brought into the frame and I believe we Have a mixture of data GPU bound moments And certainly API related the small Single frame dips are likely a GPU band Impact with the 80 plus milliseconds Being data now when I say data the real Problem here is all data issues really Manifest the CPU ones as that is the Controlling kernel for all of it so when We get these cuts from Real Time Cinema Matics back into gameplay and you get Some dips and stutters across all Hardware but on series X and Series S These are minimally affected with the PlayStation 5 and even PC at times being Heavily affected they almost always Present a Shader compilation stuff is on PS5 and this is a dx12 title this could Be a viable choice for the team to use a Higher level of API abstraction that Closer mirrors the DX API and we see This often on the PS4 with its gen MX DX Like wrapper and that aided ports from

PC to Xbox to PS4 we saw examples of This way back with things like The Witcher 3. the result is that when the Action gets heavy on the PlayStation 5 It is often performing below the series X some present as clear GPU dips but Some you won't notice but the longer Stores you will absolutely notice series X can also dip into the low 30s but that Is less frequent and as such the 40 FPS Performers much better here the third to The FPS mode is one I would choose for Now on the PS5 until the team released Some patches to help up these sections Out that can stutter quite heavily it Must also be stated that many areas can Run at a flat 40 FPS on PS5 also but in Wrap swarms or data Rich sections do Expect some dips below that Target the Series s is close to the series X all The resolution and visual reduction is Noted help alleviate the GPU load and The dx12 API is designed for the console So those shader-like stutters do not Present anything like the PS5 it can Still dip to similar mid-20s in these Heavy GPU and CPU sections but it often Stays close enough to that 40 FPS mode To feel smooth enough to be worth those Hiccups as I covered before though this 40 FPS mode is great as it is the middle Ground between 30 and 60 due to the Frame time being half the difference From 33 milliseconds to 25. I discussed

This more in my Gotham Knights review The 40 FPS mode though does require 120 Hertz screen and as you are watching it Here in this 60fps container video on YouTube the frames present like you see On the graph now it goes from 33 Milliseconds then to 16 back and forth Thus giving you a 40 FPS average but it Can look a little jittery as you watch It but on 120 hertz screen the frame Presents evenly at that 25 millisecond Level as you can now see in the same Sections leaving a flat graph and as These frames are closer together and as Consistent as a 30 FPS feed it feels Smoother my advice is if you play it on This mode choose this as it is the best Compromise between 30 and 60 FPS if you Have the screen to support it and Hopefully the team can sort out the PS5 Issues and also give that as a solid 40 FPS but you could still stomach it as it Is quite consistent at 40 FPS in the Quieter sections All right There's someone there No we don't have time Now backing up my console analysis we Can use two PC specs a Zen three 5600x And an RX 6800 we have to drop the Resolution to 70 of 4K which would Normally be 1800p but the game doesn't Actually Target the output pixel count It's actually using the axes so 70 of

The menu is actually setting it to 26.88 By 1512 and therefore the game has to Rely on its own TAA Recon to clean that Image up back to 4K just like on Consoles now the game doesn't support FSR or xcss sadly with only nvidia's Dlss being supported and in fact it was One of the first games to show the new Dlss AI frames in partnership with Nvidia and as such we can only use that Technology on my RTX 2070 for now At the recommended settings I covered Earlier which line up with the consoles At that 1512p on the RX 6800 the GPU Struggles to keep above that 40 FPS line With it dippling in similar places as Consoles you can drop to 1440p and then You get a very good level of 60 FPS Inside the same CPU data band sections That can cause the same dips down to the 30s levels and as you can see here the Game can become single thread for Rendering with the rat being heavily Multi-threaded but still bringing Performance down on this particular F600x CPU which is very powerful but in Towns with NPCs As you move the camera The CPU utilization can leap up and thus GPU dropping causing dips on that frame Rate the result is a game that can like All games flip-flop between various Impact levels on your Hardware but this One can have extreme lurches between That which present as severe dips at

Times for the prolonged periods and it Makes a locked 60fps orbit impossible at Least on the hardware I have in front to Me but even more powerful Hardware I Believe will struggle certainly in that CPU regards when it gets heavily CPU Dependent with the team working directly With Nvidia on the engine development It's not a surprise to see that the Nvidia cards can run the game much Better than AMD ones on my RTX 2070 Using 1440pd LSS balanced in the same Sections even with a weaker 2700 CPU I Am locked at 60 FPS far more often and Many of the heavier dips and stutters Noted on PlayStation 5 do not appear Here yes it is often GPU and CPU bound And single thread performance can hit The CPU earlier a 3.8 gigahertz speed But with the current build the game runs Far better and more consistent the more Powerful gpus and CPUs at times aside When it is pure rasterization loading Such as depth of fill which can impact Fill rate and bandwidth the RX 6800 does Ultimately outperform the RTX 2070 but Performance low stutters can be worse And overall the gap between the two is Much smaller than the paper specs and Obviously other titles have shown so This is a game that unsurprisingly does Benefit nvidia's cars with its API and Driver Suite which means hopefully the Team can improve performance on AMD

Cards or AMD can release a driver update Which improves performance on the Machine for as it stands the PC is the Best place to play with our higher Options and performance but you will Need quite a high spec CPU and GPU to Run this title anywhere near 1440p and a Locked 4K 60 is possibly only available On 1490s with the lss3 enabled That's you What a sober have delivered here is a Gorgeous looking title that offers Quality across all levels of hardware And certainly improves in all aspects Over the original aside performance the Game is not a bad performer overall but It does come across as one that could be Improved with some specific updates and Optimization to better suit the host Platforms AMD gpus do not run at levels Normally associated with other games and This is an area the team could improve On or AMD could release a new driver That could resolve some of the issues Noted the PlayStation 5 also has a much Bigger Gap to series X and even my RTX 2070 that I've covered in many of the Titles with the game not likely using Much of the API features aside the Superb dual sense use here that really Adds a great deal of tactile feel to the Slingshots and other areas and loading Probably shows all this best as it's Quite slow into chapters and direct

Storage is still limited to cpud packing At the moment in DirectX 12 and the game Relies on that to depak assets meaning PC and series X are very close but still Almost 20 seconds and PlayStation 5 is a Good couple of seconds slower than both Showing that this is something the team Have not yet been able to leverage I did Note a couple of bugs also with dlss Causing visual glowing and artifacts When enabled but a restart sorted this Out when it did crop up but it was also Something I noted in a few of the titles Recently when dlss is enabled of late so This may actually be an Nvidia driver Issue As it stands the results show the series X is ahead of the PlayStation 5 and even The series s offers a small but notable Performance increase in that 40 FPS mode And at this moment the series s consoles Offer a pretty stable 40 FPS mode that Can balance between that 30 and 60 Perfectly but the PC Remains the best Option if you want to attempt a 60 FPS Experience but that will likely need a Top end Nvidia card and very Deep Pockets Foreign That's it for another Deep dive into Game performance pixels and all things GPU and CPU related but if you want to Keep it technology related then keep it IGN and we'll catch you on the next one

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