Check out our God of War Ragnarok performance review! God of War Ragnarok is almost here and ahead of release we’ve put the PS5, PS4 Pro and PS4 through their paces. Join us as we dive deep into the new God of War release and see how the latest from Sony Santa Monica performs across the different hardware. God of War Ragnarok’s PS5 options include different 4K, 45fps, 60fps, and even 120fps options for you to choose on your journey, but does the game still hold up with these settings? And how does it fair on older hardware? Find out in our IGN Performance review.
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Foreign We have been feverishly waiting for this Epic journey of a father and son to draw To its conclusion since we commenced the North chapter of Kratos in 2018 now that Winter is coming things are about to Heat up cross-generation remains in Ragnarok but is this going to be a Winter of discontent for PlayStation 4 And pro owners With this second serving of the daddy Simulator upon us we have a new Generation of console entered into the Mix the PlayStation 5 is significantly More powerful than the PS4 and pro Versions of consoles and the modes and Outputs here reflect that as right from Loading you are asked what mode do you Want to enjoy this ad from the highest Pixel quality to the latest 120 FPS Frame rates you have some big choices to Make and there are some big leaps over The last generation starting with the PlayStation 5 first we have two core Modes favor resolution and favor Performance there's a third toggle in Terms of high frame rate mode which I'll Touch on in a moment favor resolution Targets a native 3840 by 2160 at 30 FPS On a 60hz screen and this is the Clearest sharpest version to play favor Performance now takes that same 4K Output from the resolution mode with Some caveats give or take and now
Targets a dynamic 4K but at 60 FPS as a Ceiling but by turning on that high Frame rate mode with 120 hertz screen The resolution mode now dynamically Scales to 1800p but targets 40 FPS and That performance mode is fixed at 1440p With potentially reaching 120. the Options here are excellent and they Really improve the performance the input Times and the response of a game that Plays as well as this the pro is similar With two modes both use DRS with the Resolution scaling between 1440p to 1656p again with that TAA pass and the Performance drops the bass down to 1080p Now still scaling back to 1656 but it Can frequently be at 1080p Finally the PS4 rounds all of these up With the same 1920 by 1080p at 30 FPS And this gives you many options to play This incredible title the choice and Effort to ensure each platform is Utilized stands out and I'm sure even Kratos himself is impressed right no No it was always a difficult man to Please anyway let's start with the PlayStation 5 and its performance using That 120 FPS 4K quality mode from the First few hours it manages to deliver on That promise meaning the 30 FPS is Locked if you have a 60hz screen or Choose to turn off that high frame rate Mode in the menu it can have a couple of Dips into the high 30s and heavier
Action and even on occasion just skips Into the next refresh of 33 milliseconds But as the Gap from 25 to 33 Milliseconds is only eight these are all But invisible the game also supports vrr And if you do have a VR screen it can Then boostable 40 FPS with those small Spikes up and down being managed by the Vrr display I noted no issues in this Mode so if you do wish to have the best Visual package and performance this is The mode to choose for those that don't Know and want the highest frame rates Then you can go for that 120 FPS mode Which basically is the performance mode With the cap removed this means you Often fluctuate some were between 80 to 90 FPS in action it feels very Responsive it feels brilliant to play And looks cracking in fact it's very Hard after a few minutes of play to Really notice the difference between Both modes and if you are after the Fastest most responsive version of the Title then this is definitely the one to Choose it can hit 120 FPS in very quiet Sections but generally it's somewhere Around that 80 to 90 FPS putting it Perfectly in a ballpark of almost Doubling the performance give or take Over that quality mode The PlayStation 4 comes in with a pretty Much locked 30 FPS a couple of dips here And there single frame judders from
Cinematics nothing major and Sony Santa Monica had delivered a fitting swong Song to the PS4 with no performance Issues to concern yourself with and this Brings us to the final console in the Pro using that 1656 DRS solution at 30 FPS the performance is as good as rock Solid as the PS4 and there's certainly No issues here it even has a better IQ Than the checkerboard solution of the Previous title but the 60fps mode Certainly has some Judah averaging Somewhere between 45 to the low 50s at Best means it can feel very close to the Same kind of performance as previous Titles on the PS3 such as God of War 3 Or Ascension it's certainly more Responsive and faster than a 30 FPS lock But do not expect a locked 60fps most of The time and in heavy combat cinematics And certainly some of the denser worlds You can get quite a bit of camera judder As it skips into the next refresh of 33 Milliseconds the dynamic resolution Scaling along with that TAA certainly Helps the image quality but it can often Be 1080p but performance is good if not Great The core assets the character models Materials exceptional particle and Visual effects animation are all close To identical no matter which platform You continue your journey on and from That perspective the fact the base PS4 a
Piece of Hardware over 10 years old now From a technological build perspective Still offers such incredible Visual and Performance levels is more than worthy Of Applause even more impressive is the Fact the team have improved many areas Over the original 2018 release a big Area of the game's exhaustive special Effects is its heavy Reliance on GPU Accelerated particles from dead bodies Decaying away that use an alpha Blended Tests that collide with particles to Allow each body to dynamically and Dramatically Decay this is increased in Ragnarok with prophecy sequences amongst Others having exuberant amount of Particles spawning colliding and glowing From PS4 to PS5 the FX Suite the team Has access to and leverages so well Provide one of the game's core visual Identity pillars and the central single Shot camera system ensures you are Always front and center of each blow and It's always incredible Being a story of Gods and Monsters Kratos is a Hawking anti-hero with his Presence always looming but never Overpowering again the team managed that Here with this stature being used and Abused based on the story and enemies You face the unique single camera shot System returns and always keeps you in The game as all gameplay to cinematics Are seamless back and forth with it
Dynamically shifting in the midst of Battle or even when you simply make your Way through the world PBR materials are Hyper realistic again with strong Diffuse base colors mixed with the pro Bass lighting system merged with bait Elements due to the game's fixed Lighting model this helps Aid the team's Design focus and the performance levels Of the older Hardware to Aid the quality And dynamic nature of the gameplay the Engine uses a mixture of Shadow maps and Then screen space shadows and Screen Space ambient occlusion you can see The Telltale artifacts of these when Occluded and disincluded by foreground Objects they present the same as Reflections doing the title which also Use a mixed probe solution in projected Cube maps with screen space reflections With the PS4 and pro using a lower Resolution and Ray March than the PlayStation 5. this provides longer and More accurate Reflections on PS5 as you Can see the shorter cut off in the Reflections Shadows or AO can still Fade Out and in on smaller incidental details Within the screen but the quality all Helps improve character lighting and Grounding within the world backed up With contact Shadows on floors and walls You can definitely see some light bleed And incorrect specular at times even on PS5 which still uses the same core
Assets and lighting model but like many Things in the game they are refined Enhanced on the newer machine the single Biggest boost the PlayStation 5 offers Is the resolution as all the areas are Improved by it including the game's Temporal anti-aliasing which helps the IQ even at 1080p look clean and sharp With very little aliasing present but The PS5 in both mode though offers a Crisp and clean image that can even be Noted just over the pros the solution Using the performance mode on PS5 is Better than the pro solution some of That comes from higher assets due to the Larger Ram pull that the console offers Plus the AA and sharpening pass may also Be slightly tweaked here and certainly Better the other change between the Resolution and performance mode on PS5 Is the fact that the shadow Cascade is Further into the distance ambient Occlusion is improved and Shadow Filtering for contact hardening is now Added in addition the level of detail is Improved with less Impostors used off Into the distance higher geometry on Objects and increased tessellation post Putting this video together we had a Chance to chat with the development team And Lead rendering program of Steve McCauley he explained some of the focus The team had at the start scalability is An important part of any modern
Rendering entering particularly when You're sporting cross-platform and Multiple Graphics modes and this was Something confirmed in my analysis with The newer solution of DRS having a Better output than the checkerboard Solution of the previous title he went Further elaborating on the TAA solution In use which does use an up sampling Technique to reconstruct the image back But on PlayStation 5 he also went into The detail that they used two areas to Bolster the image further one is a Machine learning algorithm to resample And up sample the texture details Dynamically in the game and they use a Bicubic up sampling and sharpening pass To improve the image when that DRS is in Use and this explains the reason why We're seeing better image quality at Times in the performance mode over that Flat 4K version on the quality Resolution mode it covered other areas Such as improved tessellation Shadows Screen space directional occlusion and Screen space Global illumination we will Be covering much more of this in a later Video or article but for now it was Enough to reinforce the fact that this Is taking advantage of the PlayStation 5 And even maximizing the PS4 and pro Better than the previous title In summary God of War Ragnarok is a Technical and artistic Triumph across
All plat platforms from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 you lose none of the Game's wow factor from its seamless Camera system responsive and skill based Combat system and a visual effects Suite That impresses at every opportunity as a Cross-generational title at its heart The PlayStation 5 does little more than Boost resolution performance and input On the Dual sense but that doesn't Diminish what is an astounding title for All players That's it for another Deep dive into Game technology pixels and all things Performance related if you like what we Do here the cupid rgm performance Reviews and we'll catch you on the next One keep trying
