For a game as ambitious as Final Fantasy XV, it should probably come as no surprise that the JRPG won’t always be able to maintain a stable frame rate when things on screen get a little hectic, although game director Hajime Tabata says that any dips players see “won’t deter from the experience.”
Speaking to Gematsu last week, Tabata detailed the technical differences between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game, revealing that the latter will have a dynamic resolution ranging from “900p to 1080p,” while the former will utilize the same technique, but will only manage “between 800p to 900p.”
For the Xbox One E3 demo, dynamic resolution ranges between 800p to 900p, usually closer to the 900p range, and at a constant 30 frames per second. So it is performing at a more stable and higher level than Episode Duscae and the Platinum Demo. There are times when it still dips, and that’s usually when you call on your ally commands, like when you call on Ignis to mark an enemy it dips to 26 to 27 frames, but it won’t deter from the experience. But since we’re able to achieve this for the E3 demo, we have a positive outlook on the final version of the game.
For the PlayStation 4 E3 demo, it’s a dynamic range between 900p and 1080p. Most of the time, it’s about 1080p at a constant 30 frames per second. Sometimes, it will, just like Xbox One, dip a little bit when the GPU can’t process what’s happening on the screen so quickly, but it’s mostly 30 frames. But we will continue to fine-tune and optimise the game for as much time as we can.
For those of you out there that prioritize performance first and everything else later, Tabata’s comments will likely be a little worrying, but it should be noted that performance has improved considerably since the release of the Episode Duscae demo last year and, if Tabata’s comments are accurate, the majority of your play time will be spent enjoying a stable 30 fps. Don’t forget, either, that there’s still a few months to go until Final Fantasy XV launches in full, and the development team will “continue to fine-tune and optimize the game” beforehand as much as they can.