Check out our Call of Duty MW2 Performance Review! Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has returned and in our IGN Performance Review, we get All Ghillied Up across current and last gen consoles, comparing the game’s performance across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PS4. Join us as we test all modes in the 60FPS and 120FPS range, different resolutions, make cross generation comparisons, and more.
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Reboots remakes remasters they come in Various guises but really they're just The new sequels with Activision's latest Though we get all four in one We covered the multiplayer last month in The beta that was available on last and Current generation consoles but here We're going to dive into the single Player Michael Bay action that Call of Duty does so well covering the PS5 the Series X and the series s with a look at The PC and the PS4 to get a full view of Just what Infinity Ward are delivering Here The game plays as you would expect a Series of set pieces running all the way Through but it can be the biggest visual Spectacle the engine updates offer and Here we're seeing an improvement and Iteration over the previous releases Rather than anything significantly new This means that resolutions all top out And bottom out are very similar to Almost identical settings as the Previous three releases that I've Covered a reconstruction technique used On the horizontal axis of the title Across all formats unless of course You've got a PC to turn that option off Meaning the PS4 and the series X come in At the 60 hertz mode at least at 3840 by 2160 but it's actually a reconstruction Of 1920 by 2160. their TAA Reconstruction method then brings all
That information together to present a 3840 width screen which predominantly Does a very good job of convincing you It's a full 4K output what are the Issues with the visual quality though Specifically in Darker areas and Post-processing is the fact that it uses A heavy dithered rendering technique Which can leave stipled outages that the TAA has to pick up and that doesn't Always work very well and therefore you End up with a noisy image at times and This is exacerbated the lower down that Resolution chain you go and that brings In the series s which comes in with a Target output of 2560 by 1440 but again That's at a half width reconstruction Technique which means visually it's very Close to the other versions there are Some reductions in things like quality Level of detail LOD but overall it's the Same game with some sacrifices here and There but the cutback on resolution over 60 is the biggest sacrifice here and you Get a lower image quality from it and Again it's that half width construction These are all at the 60 hertz modes the Only modes that the last generation Consoles offers so in the PS4 this is Actually targeting a 1920x1080p output But again it's only really rendering 960 By 1080 so overall this has some further Reductions over on the series s but a Lower resolution overall but performance
Can also be affected Which is a perfect time to talk about That in terms of the 60 FPS mode so Covering the series X and the PlayStation 5 first predominantly in all My tested sections and some of the Heaviest moments in the title I could Find throughout the first few hours I Found not one single drop on all of them So the PS5 and the series X no matter What I could throw at it just held on to That 60fps flat line with no issues at All so if you do want the most Consistent version on a 60hz screen then Turn this mode on it ticks the Box on Both consoles now that's not the case For the series s unfortunately which can Struggle to hold 60 FPS in some of the Same sections which are locked on the Other consoles and that means they can Come down to somewhere around the 50s to Even high 40s at certain points but it's Not just the fact that it's dropping Frames it also tears adaptively on this Version the same as the series X both PlayStation versions of the PS4 and the PS5 are fully v-sync they don't tear at All they just drop frames so this can Get you back five maybe ten percent Performance gain and this is obviously The reason why they're running it on Both Xbox console but this still means That you're dipping blow that 60 FPS Line and in addition to that you're
Getting tearing when it does which Leaves the series s actually performing Worse in my opinion than even the PS4 And that is a great shame considering The fact that this has got nothing to do With the hardware itself it's more Powerful than the PlayStation 4 and Therefore it should be outperforming it Both in visual quality and in Performance and unfortunately overall That's not the case so overall this 60fps version can have some issues on The series there are other areas where It's perfectly locked and there's no Issues at all but in most heavy combat You're going to feel those dips and Judder and notice the tearing Multiple vehicles So to ensure there's no confusion that Doesn't mean the PS4 is a completely Locked 60 FPS like I say it has no Tearing which is a benefit but it still Drops frames and 99 of the time that's No further than the next refresh of 33 Milliseconds but in combat it can be Similar to what we're seeing on the Series s there are some heavier sections With explosions and heavy combat but They dip around the same levels or Sometimes worse on the series S as they Do on the PS4 admittedly with higher Effects and higher resolution but that's A caveat and balance the team should Have managed overall in the same
Sections tested between the PS4 and the Series s you're getting almost the same Performance arguably back and forth but The PS4 wins out because that doesn't Have any adaptive vsync and therefore You're getting no unsightly tearing and Arguably exactly the same or slightly Better performance it's almost certainly The lead platform for the entire engine Development and that shows even Comparing it against the PC you're not Seeing a significant Improvement yes you Are seeing improved with things like Tesla Asian texture details resolution Obviously and even performance and other Effects but overall it's the same game With a nicer lick of paint on top but Fundamentally the PS4 version is what You're getting on every piece of Hardware you play with some boost to Visuals and performance across that Depending on your hardware and the Results here demonstrate that quite Clearly looking at these two versions Side by side you would think they were From the same platforms and in fact There is a few bugs and issues on the PC Version above the consoles but Fundamentally you'll get an identical Versions visual quality and makeup Across every single level in this title And you're not missing out anything Playing it on the PS4 the Xbox one even Although the resolution on that is even
Lower its cross-gen root stand out quite Proud even though there's a nicer lick Of paint overall it's not a significant Leap and that obviously carries over Compared to the series X and PS5 which Are absolutely identical from every area The only minor change I could notice is The PlayStation 4 runs better Shadow Resolution than the series X and the Series s and in fact the PlayStation Folders as well so it's likely a Platform solution here now the IW engine Does run a software-based variable rate Shading which is for texture details Being reduced to two four eight by eight Grids to reduce the cost on the GPU you Can see this sometimes in the textures Flickering and popping around this is Identical across all versions it's not a Hardware-based solution this might be The cause of it and I did pick this up In the beta as well but overall it's Such a minor change that I'm almost sure No one would notice it visually every Mode is identical the only other small Change is there's a reduction in LOD and Level of detail sometimes to texture Assets as well in the 120 FPS mode over The 60fps mode across all platforms it's Very minor but it was noted Foreign Comparisons taken care of we can move Into that 120 hertz mode that all three Consoles offer in the series X Series S
And the PlayStation 5. the game fully Supports vrr so if you do have a VR Screen on all three consoles then you Can turn that on and you will not get Any tearing although it's required for The series action Series S it's not Required for the PS5 which is fully V-synced this means in the performance Metrics you can see on screen the game Operates somewhere between the high 70s And the 120s it can sometimes get there In very quiet sections but often it's in The middle ground of around 80 to 90 FPS Again it feels very consistent because The lowest point of the frame rate is The highest point of 60 16 milliseconds Most of the time it's eight milliseconds Refresh with a little bit of tearing up And down which gives you a decent Performing title and it's a great option But it's arguably there most for the Multiplayer Choice moving away from that Option and into the comparison here in Like for like sections you can see the PS5 is around 4 to five percent behind The series X again though with that Adaptive vsync off it's giving the Series X a slight Advantage so with it Turned on it would arguably be the same Or slightly worse the reason why it's Enabled overall though they're Practically identical in performance Metrics and that means that exact same Waterworks section you've just seen on
The series X performs almost identically Arguably ever so slightly worse on the PS5 because it operates in the same area Of 79 to 120 FPS again not a bad Performing game by any stretch of the Imagination but it's certainly not close Enough to its Target of 120 as it is in The 60fps mode although there is one big Benefit of running this 120 FPS mode and That is on input times the game is Already one of the fastest titles for Input times since forever and we're Turning on the 120 FPS mode you can gain Back around 35 additional input latency From that controller response this is The same on the PS5 and the series X and It certainly feels crisper to play on a Title that already feels as good as it So if you are playing single player I Would still recommend the 60fps mode on Both consoles but multiplayer it would Always be that 120 FPS mode sadly I Can't make the same recommendation for The series s because arguably there's no Reason for this to have a 120 FPS mode You do not get the benefit of the input Times simply because it doesn't hit the Input rates it needs the frame rates Itself are around 60 to 70 FPS at most Case scenarios I've tested certainly in The heavier sections and even then it Can dip below 60 FPS even with a Reduction on the image quality as you Would have seen already the series X and
The PS5 also reduce their resolution in This mode as does the series s now Coming in at the same settings and Visual quality as the PlayStation 4 at This point but it still doesn't hit a Locked 60 and it's never anywhere near 120 FPS sometimes it can be around 50 to 60 percent slower than the series X and The PS5 in the same sections and that Means for me it's nothing more than an Option here just to turn on if you want To have better input times on the Slightly less performance demanding Multiplayer mode and again for that Reason it makes sense for the option but For single player there is no reason to Turn this on We close the video out with a medium to High-end PC spec here using my zen 3 5600x and an RX 6800 at 4K resolution Maximum settings which can be hard to Spot the Difference if there are any and I'm sure there are between this and the PS5 and series X it is nowhere near a Lock 60 FPS and it can dip down to some Points into the 40s which really Reinforces the reason why we're seeing This half resolution scaling solution The Reconstruction element on the Consoles but here on PC you can at least Have Dynamic resolution scaling as I Covered before in my Uncharted videos These games all have Shader compilation They've been doing it for years and
Years and years make sure that that is Done before you start playing the game Or you will get stutter as you can see All my tested sections here have all the Shaded compilations done but you'll Still seeing performance dips and these Come from GPU 99.9 of the time it's Never CPU bound specifically with my 5600x but even at 60fps on a PS4 it is Never going to be come CPU throttled This means that gpu-wise it's very Demanding if you turn on Dynamic Resolution scaling again in the same Heavier waterwork section then you can Get somewhere around those PS5 and Series X levels of 70 to 80 FPS but That's dynamic scaling from 4K be aware There are some bugs on the PC I did note It crashed a few times going into the Menu the fact that they're all separate Entities is very frustrating so you have To then quit the game to load the single Player and quit the game to load the Multiplayer it does it for you but it Adds a huge amount of delay in getting Into the title and then in addition to That it can have other issues such as Restarting the game can reduce the Resolution to down 35 of whatever your Output is set to and you have to go back Into the menu and turn it back on and Drag that menu back up that is a bug That needs to be fixed because it'd be Quite frustrating when you change game
And then realize the image quality Doesn't look quite right and actually It's because you're running around 70 Lower resolution than your target output Never a good job choice Ultimately Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Is very much more of the same and that Means if you've got the PlayStation 5 The series X the series s or a PC then You're probably not going to be happy That this is utilizing your Hardware Very well because it really isn't but That isn't its purpose its purpose is to Deliver a locked 60 FPS across every Platform as possible and deliver a Frenetic action-packed Michael Bay style Single player campaign and it ticks that Box well just don't expect much more Than that and even though the 120 FPS Modes are welcome they're really only Good for multiplayer for single player I'd stick to 60. and that's it for Another video if you enjoy these deep Dives into console PC pixel and Performance related fun then keep it IGN And we'll catch you on the next one
