This limited demo includes just two fighters, Alexander Gustafsson and Jon Jones, throwing down in a single match, but it paints a fairly positive picture. Despite EA Sports focusing on 1080p60 with its suite of launch games, UFC appears instead to operate at 1600x900 on both consoles, making this the third PS4 title to forego a full 1080p presentation, but thankfully the darkened arenas, generous post-processing, and lack of finer distant detail prevent this from ruining the experience and we're still left with a clean presentation. It's only when examining selected anti-aliasing techniques that we see any real differences between the two.
The PS4 version utilises a much more comprehensive 4x MSAA solution (perhaps with a post-process anti-aliasing technique on top) that manages to nearly eliminate aliasing in most situations despite the lower resolution. Xbox One doesn't fare quite so well, with image quality falling short of the PS4 version - 2x MSAA appears to be present, though we're not sure if there's a post-process on top, or whether we're just seeing the results of upscaling.
Unfortunately, despite utilising a lower resolution, EA hasn't aimed any higher when it comes to frame-rate, with a target of 30fps on both consoles. While they both generally maintain this level of performance, we found that slight frame-rate disturbances impact the fluidity of the experience, particularly on PS4. The fights themselves maintain a mostly consistent update, but the rest of the experience feels unpolished as a result. We also observe occasional torn frames manifesting on PS4 along the top ten per cent of the image though the darkened arena does a good job at hiding this flaw most of the time.
So, while PS4 has a distinct advantage in terms of image quality, it is the Xbox One version of the game that has the slightest of performance advantages. Once the fight begins, however, they both put up similar statistics and the PS4 issues - as small as they are - will hopefully be corrected for launch.
Looking beyond the frame-rate, there are also issues with the interface surrounding the game. This aspect of UFC feels incredibly unpolished and poorly optimised with transitions often stuttering and skipping about while moving between menus. These types of issues regularly appear in EA Sports titles, and we feel that it's about time something is done about it. While not inherently key to delivering a great gameplay experience, these interface issues do add up over time and create something that feels less polished than we'd like. Along those same lines it should be noted that loading times on Xbox One are significantly longer than on PS4. You're looking at around 36 seconds to load a match on Xbox One while the PS4 is ready to go in just 20.
So ps4 has an advantage when it comes to image quality(4x MSAA vs 2x MSAA), and load times (PS4 20 secs vs xbone 36 secs) it's framerate fluctuates between 29-31 while the xbone stays at 30fps.
Is the 1fps drop, and gain a difference maker to you or do you take the image quality, and considerably shorter loads?
Salsa
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