Need for Speed Unbound - The DF Tech Review - PS5 vs Xbox Series X/S - Criterion is BACK

Digital Foundry : It's been many years since the legendary Criterion delivered a new Need for Speed game, but the studio is back with NFS Unbound and... it's really impressive! In this video, Oliver Mackenzie discusses how the Frostbite engine is deployed on this title, how it ranks against Criterion's prior NFS classics - and yes, we get the full lowdown on how PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S compare.

[Jin_Sakai]

“The PS5 version offers a significantly better performance level than the Series consoles.”

Warzone 2, Callisto Protocol, and now this. PS5 is an amazing console considering its specs.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Callisto Protocol aside, MS seems to be pushing devs to go for full 4K or as close as possible, and it causes issues maintaining 60fps.

There has to be some policy or encouragement because this issue has cropped up repeatedly for 2 years (in these cases, the Series X version typically has a higher res with framerate dips).

Digital Foundry theorized that's why the One X port of Modern Warfare 2 has such a bad framerate compared to PS4 Pro. They think it's basically so that the game can be labeled as "Ultra 4K" on the store (there's an initiative).

I personally think the reason for this initiative is because MS need the base resolution on Series X games to stay high so that the resolution of Series S games doesn't go down too low.

Honestly, journalists need to press Phil Spencer about this - he does a lot of interviews. haha. Either way, I think it's far to say that the PS5 has outperformed the initial expectations people had looking at the specs on paper.

[blackblades]

Basically, probably banking on vrr to fix it while being 4k.

[Nitrowolf2]

It may be more so to future-proof these things, no?

Look at One X games that were "native" 4K but weren't unlocked 60FPS and see how they now compare on Series X with FPS boost and such.

I definitely prefer FPS over res, but I suppose the bigger picture with that idea that they are pushing hitting native res is down the road for games to be able to run on better hardware?

I mean, look at PS4 Pro games, they weren't native 4K, and even at times didn't hit 60FPS. When they were playable on the PS5 they hit 60FPS naturally due to the hardware bump, but the res. stayed the same.

Just a theory, going based on the idea of MS pushing devs to prioritize resolution over FPS.

[blackblades]

They both has dynamic resolution so the next system should have them automatically 4k60fps naturally. The only thing I can think of at the moment is the vrr being able to clear that not locked at 60fps problem. So the devs pushing the better resolution over fps

[Binarycode]

That's not what's causing the framerate issues.

The Seriesx has higher ram bandwidth and high texture throughput among other things it has higher specs on.

https://www.techpowerup.com...

https://www.techpowerup.com...

PS5 has much higher Gpixel rate and can display more onscreen.

PS5 also has a much faster SSD thanks to 12lanes while having the ability to remove data much faster as well as decompress data quickly.

I mean if the Series X is fine at those slighlty lower bounds, then MS needs to fix it. Because nobody is going to notice it's not full 4k. That's why most new graphic cards use fsr and dlss to upsample.

[wiz7191]

Those are all cross gen develop games with the PS4 being the lead development platform since it’s the strongest base console .. Callisto also had help from 150 Sony employees to help with the PS5 and PS4 version.

[blackblades]

Y'all taking that 150 Sony employees speech to the grave

[gold_drake]

"considering the specs"

[darkrider]

Teraflops diference isn't enough to be the better console. The architecture of the ps5 is just better. And it's easier to develop.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

Remember when the armchair devs at n4g blasted Cerney for saying that teraflops isn't the *only* determine factor?

[neutralgamer1992]

Off the shelf specs- Phil and Xbox team

Custom built with developer feedback- mark Cerny and Sony team

12TF
10.28TF

[darthv72]

The cell shaded aspects reminds me of auto modelista at times.

[Destiny1080]

constant dips into the low 50s on both xbox consoles

doesn't seem to be a resolution problem because the S has the exact same issues at 1080p

[kingnick]

It's more likely COD and now Need for Speed Unbound used PS5 as the lead platform which makes sense as the bulk of sales will come from Sony's platforms (PS4/PS4 Pro/PS5 for COD and PS5 for Need for Speed).

The Need for Speed series gained prominence on the PS1 and achieved the majority of series sales on Sony platforms so it makes even more sense to make the PS5 the lead platform.

EA have a deservedly poor reputation for rushing the release of games, just look at Battlefield 2042 and Mass Effect: Andromeda and be thankful Need for Speed Unbound isn't a hot mess on launch.

Need for Speed Unbound is the first game Criterion Games' have released using the Frostbite engine so it's impressive for a first showing.

Frostbite is an incredibly complicated engine and it's far harder to achieve like-for-like results then recent Unreal Engines.

Frostbite is likely a large contributing factor to Need for Speed Unbound being a current gen console exclusive as Frostbite games often struggled on the weak Jaguar CPU cores in the XO/PS4 consoles.

I wouldn't be surprised if patches improve performance or the game says as is, that's just the nature of working with Frostbite.