Star Wars Battlefront 2 Ps4 Pro Beta Review
How Star Wars Battlefront 2'southward stunning tech scales beyond consoles
Digital Foundry breaks downward the beautiful beta on PS4, Pro and Xbox 1.
Die's Frostbite engine kicked off the console generation with Battlefield four, and the technology has evolved considerably over the concluding four years. Star Wars Battlefront 2 may well be its most spectacular outing yet. Importing and enhancing many of the new features from last year'southward Battlefield ane, our impression of the recent 2 beta is that we're not simply looking at newer maps, weapons, and characters, but a articulate visual upgrade that brings united states even closer to the definitive Star Wars videogame experience. It's all nigh authenticity - Frostbite's feature set is a terrific match for the Star Wars aesthetic.
Take the battle set on Naboo. The capital metropolis shows a level of detail significantly across that of the kickoff Battlefront. The beautiful buildings are rendered with complex geometry and enough of intricate particular, packed with combatants via the 40-actor Galactic Assault style. Move inside the palace and Dice'southward exemplary use of physically-based rendering and photogrammetry (with surface properties scanned in from real-life materials) creates a distinct look to the presentation that is pure Star Wars.
This level of item is also evident on Takadana, a planet from The Strength Awakens where resistance forces battle against a ground set on by the First Order. The forests surrounding Maz's castle are alive with particle physics in the class of debris and leaves blowing in the current of air, while the general level of item on offer is superb, on par if not better than the almost dense maps from the first Battlefront. Lighting, shadows, and post-processing are also expanded upon too, with heavy use of film grain, chromatic aberration, and lens distortion - though perhaps some aspects hither are layered a lilliputian heavily.
Happily, while graphical complexity has increased, Dice has also managed to meliorate console epitome quality besides. The first Battlefront runs at a fixed 900p on PS4 and 720p on Xbox One, while dynamic resolution scaling is in play on its sequel, with pixel counts raised and lowered according to rendering load. The internet result is that for the majority of the game's duration, Battlefront 2 likewise runs at a higher resolution than its predecessor - a great endorsement of the benefits of this technique.
On PS4 we're looking at between 972p to a full 1080p, but outside of more than enervating scenes the game sticks very closely to its full HD target, so as a result, image quality is noticeably cleaner and clearer. Additional softness just starts to pitter-patter in equally the engine is put under load in more circuitous scenes, but drops in resolution rarely final for long. It's a similar story for Xbox One, which fluctuates between 792p to around 1000p, commonly hovering around the 900p marking for extended periods. As expected, PS4 tends to deliver a more consequent, sharper experience, only the apply of temporal anti-aliasing ensures that scaling artefacts are rarely an outcome on either platform - both announced polish, though soft at times.
Meanwhile, PS4 Pro resolution increases to a maximum of 1440p, though 1296p seems to be the nigh mutual result during regular gameplay. It's not the best upgrade in resolution for those using a 4K screen, simply the game does support downwardly-sampling, then paradigm quality on a 1080p screen is improved over base PS4. Resolution appears more consistent, and the temporal AA is also boosted by the actress coverage downwardly-sampling provides.
On summit of that, at that place's evidence of settings tweaks to the engine, giving an improved look overall. In short, the sense we get from this initial look is that the PS4 Pro game features a balance of visual boosts and resolution, similar to Battlefield one. The difference with concluding yr'south Die epic is that checkerboarding seems to accept been removed.
Our only bugbear with the game's visual presentation based on what we've seen so far is that the heavy employ of mail-processing often yields a softer presentation than we'd expect to see. The motion picture grain suits the await of the game, merely chromatic abnormality and lens distortion can experience out of identify. Thankfully, Dice'south lighting lead on the project has stated that these elements are fix for be tweaked, and then information technology'll be interesting to run across how the developer chooses to rebalance the post-processing pipeline for the terminal release.
Beyond resolution, the visuals are subtly tweaked across each panel. Comparison points in the beta are limited, only the Pro benefits from improved ambient occlusion, higher quality light-shafts and slightly more complex use of tessellation across some scenery, such as the rocky hillsides found on Takodana. Meanwhile, base PS4 offers upwards slightly higher resolution shadows and reflections over Xbox I, along with a refinement in tessellated surfaces. Curiously, asset streaming is faster on base PS4 than on the other consoles. Perhaps this is down to individual hard drive tolerances, as all machines are equipped with 5400 RPM drives. Or information technology could be downwards to this beingness unfinished beta lawmaking, and that not all aspects of the game are fully optimised yet. Generally though, in that location'due south a sense that the Battlefront 2 experience features more refinement as you venture upward the console power ladder, despite some occasional anomalies.
Battlefront 2 delivers a visual boost over the original game then, while also tweaking the experience for each platform. But what does this mean for operation? With higher resolutions and more complex graphics in play, it'due south clear that the current version of the beta is hitting base PS4 and Xbox One harder than the original game. Whereas the original managed to deliver a practically solid 60fps on PS4, and but minor dips on Xbox One, this sequel struggles at times to provide a stable level of performance. The massive Galactic Assail modes frequently drib into the mid to low 40s across both consoles, with frame-rates hit a picayune harder on Xbox One. Information technology's the more than open areas in heavy action scenes that tend touch on upon operation here, with particle effects and large numbers of players taxing GPU bandwidth and CPU processing ability.
Move into less stressful situations, such as the Naboo palace interior, or the strike mission set on Takodana, and frame-rates come up much closer to hit 60fps. It's not perfect, just the dips are less noticeable than the Galactic Assault way, and the game spends more fourth dimension at that buttery smooth, flawless updat rate. Out of the base of operations consoles, the PS4 comes out slightly ahead, with fewer drops in performance when the engine is under load, with matches feeling a niggling more than consequent in terms of smoothness. In comparison, the PS4 Pro generally comes very shut to hit 60fps, and operation at that place is much to closer to the original game running on Xbox One.
Of course, information technology'due south worth bearing in mind that this is a beta build nosotros're looking at - unfinished code that hasn't been fully optimised. So, information technology'southward expected that performance and other aspects of the visuals may be improved for the final game. In fact, DICE has a rail record in this area. With the first Battlefront, performance fell brusk in earlier builds, only delivered a nigh-on locked 60fps in the final release.
Nobody can bet against Dice when it comes to optimisation and then information technology stands to reason that we could see a similar comeback with Battlefront ii besides. That said, the visual upgrades in this sequel are pushing the consoles harder than before, so whether the taxing Galactic Assault stages can reach the same silky-smooth consistency remains to exist seen. It volition certainly exist interesting to meet what Xbox 1 X brings to the table in this regard, especially if the visual feature prepare is further increased over the current consoles.
But for now, based on the strength of the beta, Battlefront 2 is shaping up nicely. While operation could be more consistent (and hopefully will be in final code) the look and feel of the game is otherwise excellent across all platforms. The new locations and space battles look spectacular, while the familiar sound effects and John Williams score really help to deliver an authentic Star Wars experience throughout the game. The multiplayer aspect holds up well too, with reliable matchmaking and mostly stable in-game netcode.
But having captivated the beta over the last few days, it'south the single-actor entrada that remains the nifty unknown. Set up from the perspective of an Imperial Stormtrooper, this looks to exist a unique take on the Star Wars story. And on a visual level, in that location's the potential for memorable prepare-pieces alongside another boost to graphical complexity too - elements that should accept full advantage of the Frostbite engine. The beta has been a visual treat - we're fascinated to see if the unmarried-player mode can trump it.
Source: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2017-star-wars-battlefront-2-console-tech-analysis
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