Evil West's PS5 Performance Mode Is a Bit of a Kicker at 1080p, 60fps

I always aim for 4K anyway on PS5 so 30fps nothing new ATM 👍

Nobody complained on 1080p60 for Returnal (maybe because many didn’t know that), so why here?

Still really want to play it. But would have liked to see more optimization for PS5 and Series X, they are plenty powerful to push this game better. Maybe after the game releases and if sales are good, we will see more options and better specs. If not, thats ok, looks fun and i really want to play it.

Given its PC requirements for 1080/60 are a GTX 1060 or RX590 then clearly the PS5 and Series X should be aiming much higher than those

@Max_the_German never played Returnal. Hate the genre. But love the developer and the art and gameplay look great. Just not into games that once you die and you will die, you start over. I tried to love Hades and every time i was playing it i was thinking I’d rather be playing Diablo.

@Max_the_German Returnal used upscaling techniques to make the image appear a lot sharper. Wasn't perfect, but it still looked much better than a locked 1080p.

Even though I'm literally dying to play this game this changes everything for me, I'll wait a couple of months to wait for a proper screen resolution update (hopefully we will get it).

With a good upscaling 1080p can look pretty ok.
It’s always the thing - sure we expect more than only 1080p but the overall visual quality of a game isn’t only defined by numbers.
We will see what the game offers.

@Qu1n0n3z if the game is good and you like to play it why should you wait?
There won’t be a huge update that magically boost the resolution. And if so it might look a bit sharper but I wouldn’t stick to all of these numbers and specs all the time to judge about a game.

Still using a 1080p TV! so it's not a really big deal and games still retain that graphical quality are at that resolution! 1080p 60 is still fine, it's not like playing 5th gen console on LED Display!

That is a bit of a blow; bear in mind if you have a smaller TV and/or you sit like, 15ft away then it might not be a problem. But I remember playing through GotG in performance mode and the 1080p felt like I needed glasses.

Still, with a fast-paced, action oriented game like this, 30fps is a no go. Perhaps wait for patch or just suck up the soft image quality.

Well, at least they give you a 60fps option. Some AAA, premium games don't even give you that.

@KaijuKaiser haha I know right..... (X_X)

@Max_the_German so true! better to not even know, I thought Returnal looked awesome

@Reeneman #1 We still don't know if the game would be good or bad. #2 I'll wait for reviews to see if they mention any resolution issues and #3 I won't have my ps5 with me during the holidays so I'll need to wait anyway lol.

@Qu1n0n3z Agreed it's definitely a wait for review kinda game. I remember when Nercomunda: Hired Gun was coming out, it looked like a blast, then the reviews hit and it was more like an avoid

Ive played 1080p games on my samsung neo qled 55 and they look fine, maybe just getting older but i tend to think a lot of gamers see themselves as extended family members of Digital Foundry nowadays.

I feel like a decent part of the outrage over things like this is performative and not nearly as noticeable as some people make it out to be. I'm sure the game could look marginally better but it seems like a good number of folks are acting as if it'll be running on a potato or something.

@Green-Bandit Never played an arcade game, I take it?

Funniest thing about all of this is that the PS4 and the XSX have the exact same graphics setting

@ShogunRok Yes, that’s true. Evil West is an UE4 game (same as Returnal), so the integrated TAA could help to mitigate the low resolution. Or they use the FSR 2.1 plugin for UE4 to get a much cleaner image with low effort. Or they just present an old-school 1080p image. That all means: A raw pixel count is not enough to assess the picture quality nowadays.

@Qu1n0n3z all good. This was no front

@Reeneman All good bro, I saw your point there too .

This is disappointing, especially when some open world games can do dynamic 4K when using performance mode.

@Smiffy01 totally agree with you....1080p 60 is fine as an option it's just become a thing people can moan about and certain people love to moan(and think they're always right)

@ShogunRok @Max_the_German If I remember rightly Housemarque said they went with 1080p in Returnal for ascetics as much as performance, however one of the pros of that was that they could use the extra GPU cycles to do other things.

Could well be that Focus are doing something similar here and without the spare GPU cycles they might need to make other sacrifices.

@Max_the_German Yeah, true. Hopefully it does use some kind of technique, or perhaps they'll patch something in post-launch.

Is it a locked 1080p?

If so that's a solid no for me at least not at launch because that is a clear indicator that this game is poorly optimized and there's no way I'm buying in as a beta tester, just like many did with Gotham nights. I can't justify shelling out full retail money for a game shipping in a state where it's not optimized well enough to fully utilize target hardware. I didn't buy this PS5 to play games at 1080p.

You can come on here and make all the excuses you want but when you see a game like Ragnarok doing at least 1440 to 2160p at 60 then this is just not acceptable. Hopefully it does some sort of upscaling but I think it worked in returnal not just because of the upscaling but also because of the color gradient of that game along with the art style.

In a game that actually has like genuine daylight and variation in color gradient to a higher degree, 1080p absolutely looks bad on Modern TVs unless you have just a really small TV.

Hopefully it's upscaled

@Smiffy01 As someone said: audiophiles don't listen to music, they test equipment. Gamers are turning the same

Crazy to think a 1080/60 option is something to moan and groan about nowadays. I thought people were more than willing to cut resolution to get those frame rates?

it all depends on what quality the 1080 is. It can look quite beautiful - even indistinguishable - from some upscaled 2k graphics so I see no reason to complain before I see it.

Its fine by me.looking forward to evil west.word up son

I would much rather have more visual bells & whistles at a steady 60fps if it means cutting back resolution. With all the reconstruction techniques available to developers today, 1080p isn't much of a big deal.

I hate the whole "Must be 4K or not next-gen" mentality. There is a reason Nvidia and AMD are pushing DLSS and FSR respectively: high visual quality at high performance trumps native resolution any day of the week.

@MFTWrecks not in a long long time, but when i did i made sure i had a pocket full of continues. You thought of that tho, I’ll assume.

Wow, game sounds literally unplayable. This is the current generation for crying out loud! I only play games that are 1713p at 87 fps.

Hold up. Many of the folks on this site literally just said they would take 1080p resolution as long as 60 fps was achieved with Plague Tale Requiem. Now it has to be at least higher than 1080p? Really? I think that's totally unreasonable.

Would I prefer it be a higher resolution? Sure but in absolutely no way is this a deal breaker. If it was like 480p or 720p I'd understand an argument but 1080p? That's still perfectly acceptable imo.

At a normal viewing distance your eyes cannot even see the difference between 4k and 1080p. I will take 1080p and 60 fps everyday but I cannot even get that on some games because people insist on 4k for literally no reason.

@RBRTMNZ 1080p is definitely more blurry especially on a 4K TV.

While 1080p is often too much of a drop for me (I often err on the side of Graphics modes instead), it's the upscaling and AA techniques used that will be the decider here. Games such as Chernobylite use 1080p to achieve 60fps but look fantastic considering. Hopefully WFH have done us good here.

Predictably there are plenty of people willing to write off the game already. Gamers love knee-jerk reactions to specs on paper 😂 Always reserve judgement until you've seen the results. Either way, I've pre-ordered and I'm ready to pew pew!

@Green-Bandit Sure. But if ya walked away and came back ya still hadda start at the beginning. And nothing carried over. OH NO!

Rogue likes are the modern equivalent of arcade games, but with fancier features. That's all. Anyone complaining about them gives too much credence to how new/different they are. restarting used to be the norm. At some point, everyone ran out of continues.

Also, Returnal is one of the best games of the past few years. You're missing out on a delightful and satisfying experience.

Only way I'd think it wouldn't appeal to someone is if they hate third person shooters (like the way I can't stand turn-based games and have yet to find a game that has changed my mind on them). Otherwise, its rogue like elements are built into the story and mechanics in a way that make the game seem far more like a mysterious exploration/adventure game than a pure "I had to start over, boo hoo" sorta game.

@RBRTMNZ I'd say a vast majority of people can tell the difference between the two, especially if it's a raw 1080p or with low-level AA. The difference is BIG at 42" or above. Not to say they don't look satisfactory per se.

Devs should always be offering 30 and 60fps modes though, regardless of resolution. I would say that's down to the devs themselves rather than because players are demanding 4k... Lucky that most games do have a 60fps option now. It's only been Gotham Knights and Plagues Tale recently, and I highly doubt a 60fps mode woulda been stable in either (for different reasons). I guess that's why 40fps options have become important.

Another solution, downsize your televisions everyone.

Guardians of the Galaxy runs at 1080p60 so why the fuss now?

On another note:
PS5 should easily be able to run it at 1440p60 with some detail settings tuned down.

It’s an AA game not AAA. Options are fine.

It will probably be unfairly shredded in the review but I can’t wait to play it.

Fuzzy 1080p has become noticeable to me with some games (Forbidden West had a pretty stark contrast between resolution and performance modes before the big patch), but it's not going to stop me from playing something that's good.

Definitely waiting for reviews with this one, to hopefully see whatever it's an enjoyable b-game or not.

It's all about the game for me, from the trailers, and gameplay reveals it looks pretty damn good. Definitely looking forward to this.

Funny, a Plague Tale Requiem was poorly optimized and was also published by FHI.

I’m still super excited for this game and hey, at least they give us the option to choose between the two graphical settings. I will likely go with the 1080/60. Maybe down the road they can patch it to run 4K/60 like Sony did with God of War 2018 on PS5. One can only hope!

@Dishonored29 If you are sitting more than 3 feet away from a 55" 4k TV science says there is no difference. That being said I have done the eye test and yes I can see a visual difference between performance mode and visual mode. The difference I see is developer added detail rather than additional clarity. Polygon's article about Ragnarok visual modes has an image slider that shows exactly what I am referring to. I think people confuse this for added clarity.

@RBRTMNZ dude I neeed an eye test and even I can discern the difference. Always always notice in small HDR highlights the cut off point; how sharp they are the line of separation. Are they pin point sharp most HD to me now is soft anyway as if colour and contrast bleed

Can't wait to play this, don't mind the 1080p, it is a bit sh*t for PS5 but hopefully the gameplay more than makes up for it!

The way the article is written, it makes it sound like it's only the PS5 version. Which isn't the case. Same display options for Series X.

I expect 8K 120fps in all PS5 games.

Obviously a higher resolution is preferred, but as long as it's a smooth 60 FPS, I'll be ok. It was unfortunate that Guardians of the Galaxy dropped all the way down to 1080p, and it wasn't a completely stable 60 FPS, but it didn't take anything away from me highly enjoying the game for the most part.

Obviously half the resolution is noticeable, but at the same time the higher resolution isn't going to make an ugly game look much better. Vice versa most of the time as well unless they somehow both the performance mode, which does happen, but is rare. So, I still say that the framerate is key in most cases, and it should be here as well.

@MFTWrecks i want to play it cause i think it looks amazing, when it hits the right price that i am willing to try it, I’m sure i will. But i like to explore and see worlds not die and see the same level with small differences for the next try. Hades was about as good of a rouge game as i could imagine being made and after like 30 attempts and clearing it, i just never wanted to play it or another Rouge game. I do however like your comparison to arcade like experiences, but those are a niche product for most gamers. Rouges certainly sell but they aren’t mainstream games no matter how they try. Even the latest Turtles game had loads of continues in it. Does your weapons upgrade in Returnal when you die?

When we see that others can do it, then I say same as what I did for plague tale - lazy devs.

@NeThZOR the fuss is because we are tired of lazy devs. You are right for Giardians, it loooked nice, but still, not optimized. We should be demanding or they will sell us *****.

Wouldn't switching your TV's output setting down to 1080p instead of 4K solve the resolution output issue?

The Xbox One X does 2160p @ 30fps.
Mean while the Series S does 1080p @ 30fps.

What are they doing?

EDIT: SMH I wasn't paying attention to the engine. It kinda makes sense now.

Just had a look at this game, first time I've even noticed it. Does show promise though, looks like they have taken inspiration from other games, GOW, Gears, Doom. Interesting.. usually playing on 4k, 30 so this doesn really effect me tbh. I find once you play for a while your eyes get used to the 30fps.

If possible, they need to stop using Unreal…. It is always the games using this engine the ones having optimization problems. Maybe Unreal 5 will fix this, but I doubt it.

Nowadays you have to appreciate PS studios and their proprietary engines. I’m pretty sure now that Housemarque is owned by PS, it will be switching to another engine for their next game.

And this is why i still have a 1080p TV with my PS5, since i always prefer performance theres no point for me to upgrade. Ive been gaming with the same tv since the ps3 generation and seems like i can go on another gen with the same tv until the PS6 comes out and can finally run games at 4k 60fps locked

1080p60 is perfectly fine to me! I just want those frames!

Game looks fine to me. If it moves smoothly when i'm kicking ass with my mate, i dont care.
And yes i have a 4k vrr allm, but if the game is fun i'm havin it!

@shogunrok, review coming soon? Does concern me when devs dont give review code before release date. Surely it cant be as good as it looks?

@Michael2008ish If all goes to plan, we should have a review before launch.