Performance Analysis: Battlefield Hardline Multiplayer

With much to prove after Battlefield 4's stability woes at launch, the delayed Hardline takes no chances in getting it right. Having tracked the game's progress since its early E3 2014 reveal, the recent beta showed a clear advance in overall performance levels, promising a more polished end product on day one. Today, we have the final PlayStation 4 and Xbox One code to hand, where to varying degrees we see Visceral Games' efforts paying off - though it's clear a locked 60fps is still a hard won fixture on console.

[jackanderson1985]

save to say frostbite 3 on the consoles is a mess... subpar resolutions and a choppy framerate

[joab777]

Is 40fps w/ 64 olayers, destruction and map size really an issue. I know it isn't 60fps or 120fps, but is it really bad at 40 fps?

[jackanderson1985]

tv's generally don't refresh at 40.. .personally i don't have an issue but some do and considering they touted 1080p/60FPS when it was first announced it's kinda a disheartening thing to see

[WellyUK]

It is bad considering a pc with similar specs would run it at a stable 60 on higher settings... Frostbite is well optimised on PC but it just seems to be not working on consoles.

[dantesparda]

Its not the engine that is the problem, its the systems. They got these pathetically weak low power tablet CPUs that have low IPC and are really just two 4 core CPUs taped together that are the problem. You show me any other game on these systems that has 64 players with maps and physics and destruction the size of BF with a better framerate and I'll eat my words. The systems are weak.

[Izzy408]

If the game is going to run at 720/900p, then this game should be running at a solid 60fps. In some cases, the fps almost dropped down to the 30s. WTF is that?

[KingWookiee]

BF4 is VERY CPU intensive, especially for 64 players. Both consoles do not have very good CPU so frame rate drops will happen at 64 and even 32 player counts.

[m1armor]

You guys also have to realize these consoles have subpar components inside them so..

[DivoJones]

Very true. Most of the good/higher end gaming video cards cost about the same as a console system. So i'm sure there's a fair amount of graphical 'optimizing' done to console versions of games to find that perfect compromise of quality vs performance.

[WellyUK]

Ye but a pc with similar specs can run this game better... The engine just doesn't seem to work on consoles as at 720p this game should be sitting dead on 60 with no drops yet it isn't... You really don't need a good card to run BF games as they are quite well optimised on pc a 270x which is £130 now can run this on med to high at stable 60 heck even at ultra it can sit above 40 most of the time at 1080p.

[JasonKCK]

I just got a gaming laptop as a gift 4 days ago that is on par with current gen consoles. It did cost $200 more than a console but still. There are people building PC's with better specs than PS4/X1 for about the same price. PC will be the only place to find 4k gaming for many years to come. PC is the heavy hitter this time around..

[Gamer1982]

Seems like frostbite is a very demanding engine especially once you crank that player count up. People can compare to other games like COD but games like that don't have no where near the player count.

[hello12]

Nothing demanding about it,they just ported the same assets from BF4 over and redone the maps and campaign.

You can even tell what BF4 maps they redone there is visual cues everywhere.

Even two of the maps coming to Hardline look identical

[Ark_]

You are right about the reskin.
But that doesn't change the fact, that their engine is demanding on CPU and GPU. Playercount, mapsize and ongoing action/destruction have quiet an effect on fps.

[joab777]

It's not just the player count. And Battlefield has always struck me as a PC game that was made for the console. What they do is pretty amazing, but obviously very difficult to optimize for current console specs.

In fairness ot is 64 players w some destruction.

[Genuine-User]

720p for current-gen is unacceptable in my opinion.

[joab777]

The problem is that price demand for current consoles was very low when they launched. We get what we get.

[Genuine-User]

Both the PS4 and Xbox one are good enough for better results. Dice should re-work their engine for current gen.

[MasterCornholio]

Isn't it 900P on the PS4?

[Genuine-User]

It is, and it's not good enough in my opinion.
My custom built mid-range PC from 2011 holds up better while playing Battlefield than a PS4. Every other game seems to run better on the PS4.

[kaizokuspy]

@genuine that's great that your mid range PC is capable of it, but a lot of people buy consoles so they don't have to play on PC. PC games are great, but sometimes I just want to pay my money and have my trash console boot the game up, with out having to worry about viruses, norton security, or learning proper PC maintenance and new lingo for a more powerful, complex platform. In the end, console gaming may not be aesthetically pleasing to the majority of PC gamers, but it comes down to the simplicity of just buying something for $400 that will work with every game developed for it over its life-cycle. I agree though, all console games on all platforms should be 1080p. I think the answer will be Hololens and Morpheus to that respect. 120fps upscaling sounds nice, but let's wait and see.

[Yukonsbud]

So if they made a new frostbite 4 engine could it have better frames and res on ps4 and x1?

[joab777]

Yes. I would imagine it would be optimized for current tech. They could make an engine that works for consoles, but the engine was built for PC, and no way we're they going to build a new engine for Hardline. Most likely we may see it w Battlefield 5.

We realize that B4 was announced and released much quicker than anyone anticipated, and then Hardline. Hopefully, they take a yr off and give us F4 with B5 in 2017.

My worries are with Battlefront if it is using F3. It is a PC engine 1st and foremost.

[Yukonsbud]

Thanks for the input. Hopefully in BF5 we can play with a better resolution than 720p.

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

I played BF4 and the frame-rate drops were pretty noticeable on the PS4 version. Playing the beta for Hardline on PS4 I never really noticed any drops except for the rare internet lag I had once. It's definitely running better than BF4 was on PS4. But of course the graphics are not any better and in certain places it looked like there was no anti-aliasing being used but maybe the final version fixed that.

[iistuii]

I agree. The lack of AA makes it as jaggie as hell & I doubt the retail version will be any better as B4 was as bad on consoles.

[Volkama]

Ignoring all the tech stuff and numbers in the article, that block map destruction sounds awesome.

It does seem concerns about the tablet CPUs in these consoles are entirely valid though. I'm glad Dice/Visceral are trying to push the boat on physics and scale still, but you can see why most games are so status quo and sterile...

[gamer9]

You get what you pay for in terms of performance and convenience. I have no problem with 900p (or 720p) if the game still looks good and more importantly is fun to play. It’s funny all these people that are demanding 1080/60 on a $400 console. Like, go buy a PC already.

Really looking forward to this game =)

[Father__Merrin]

too expensive to build a pc to play this at max

[windblowsagain]

I'm passing on this anyway. Played the beta and never felt connected to it.

Will wait for BF5 OR BBC3.

As for the Consoles

Both have Under 2ghz processors in them although 5 cores running.

It's obviously about splitting jobs between them and most likely the drop in fps is due to this. I'm sure this will greatly improve over time.

http://www.bf4blog.com/batt...

Look at cpu threads being used %

[Mr-Zex]

The issue here lies with the Frostbite engine itself I believe. The engine has been nothing but an issue and hard to optimize from platform to platform, let alone the countless issues, bugs, net code issues and glitches the engine itself still has from BF3 to BFH alone.

They need a new in house engine cause this one just doesn't work properly.

And before you disagree with me keep in mind I've been playing Battlefield games since 1942, I know what to expect but with this generation it feels like every company just releases a more and more broken game and engines to go along with it and simply don't care as long as it rakes in the $$$

[Saijahn]

The game plays really smooth. If you're a techie maybe you'll notice something you don't like, but if you're into having fun, this is the best Battlefield to date. I'm enjoying my free time with it on xbox one and look forward to playing the full game next tuesday.

[WellyUK]

As long as your enjoying it, doesn't really matter what others think or say. Still on the fence about the game but i did enjoy the beta.

[Sensiblesteve]

The games great

Just enjoy life and stop worrying about things that don't really make any difference