The team at Digital Foundry did a brief comparison of the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, but the results are far from clearcut. As you may remember, the PS4 version runs at 1080p, but the Xbox One uses dynamic resolution scaling to switch between 900p and 1080p depending on how graphically intensive the scene is. And while the PS4 is capped at 30fps, the Xbox One is not.The Witcher 3 has been both critically and commercially successful since its release last week, but it’s not without its issues. Most notably, the frame rate on the PS4 and Xbox One has been sub-par. Nobody sincerely expected it to be hitting 60fps on either console, but it seems that it can’t even maintain a solid 30fps. We’re a year and a half into this console generation, and AAA developers still can’t keep the frame rate up.
As you can see in the video above, the Xbox One’s frame rate is actually higher than the PS4s under most circumstances. That sounds like a good thing, right? Well, not necessarily. Since the frame rate is unstable, it can actually appear more stuttery than a game locked at a rock-solid 30fps. Sadly, the PS4 version can’t deliver 30fps across the board, so the benefits of V-Sync and a capped frame rate are greatly reduced.
Neither console runs The Witcher 3 particularly smoothly, but the developer (CD Projekt Red) is well known for delivering beefy patches in the weeks and months after the initial release. Don’t hold your breath for a 60fps update, but there’s a decent chance that we could see a patch that improves performance closer to a solid 30fps.
With all of that said, the game is totally playable on both consoles. I did some game capture on my own this week on the PS4, and you’ll see that the moment-to-moment gameplay works fine. In the video above, you’ll see the same scenes at 1x playback and .5x playback, and you’ll find that it doesn’t stand out as particularly jarring most of the time. It’s certainly not optimal, but don’t skip such a wonderful game just because there are some mildly annoying frame rate issues. If anything, the Xbox One save bug is what you should be worried about.
Of course, frame rate isn’t everything. Over at IGN, they made a comparison video showing off the graphical fidelity of the exact same scenes in the PC (with maxed out settings), PS4, and Xbox One versions of the game. While the smoother frame rate of the PC version might initially catch your eye, the much improved lighting effects are absolutely stunning. If you have a PC that meets the recommended specs, it’s clearly the version to buy.
If your PC isn’t up to the task, both of the console versions are mostly fine. The PS4 version seems slightly better, but the differences from the Xbox One version are relatively trivial. Whichever platform you prefer, you should definitely buy The Witcher 3. You may want to wait a month or two for the rough edges to be sanded down, but this isn’t a game you’ll want to miss.
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