The new generation Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X offer a big technological leap from the current generation and this jump must be matched by a big jump in graphics quality and performance, or so is the region at least for some, but instead we still see some games that will perform at 30 frames / s or maybe Sacrificing clarity in order to improve performance and as thin as possible to 60fps. Why is this?
To answer this question, let us first take a look at the capabilities of the new generation devices, which focus on improving performance in upcoming games, and at the beginning the basic processing unit, which will work at a power of 3.8 GHz in the Series X and 3.5 GHz in the PlayStation 5 with the adoption of the new architecture of Zen 2 and this makes it a stronger competition Modern computers.
As for the second pillar in the power of the device, which is considered the main one is the GPU graphics card, where the new RDNA 2 architecture from AMD will be adopted with 12 teraflops in the series X and 10.3 teraflops in the PlayStation 5, and this also places it in the line of power of modern computers.
The third pillar is the RAM, where both devices will contain 16 GB of very fast GDDR6 RAM, taking into account the speed of the modified SSD storage drives.
These capabilities can make the jump between the current generation and the new generation by 6 to 8 times in total, and this is enough to make us say goodbye to the 30fps in the new generation games, but this did not happen.
Let's start by answering the question, why do we still see poor performance in some new generation games despite their technical strength?
There are two factors that will make us see this low performance in the games of the first new generation is temporary, which is that the generation is still at the beginning of the journey and the developers still do not realize the exploitation of its capabilities as required, and this is enough to make the developer sacrifice some of the technologies and capabilities in the guts of these devices in order to reach the launch date of its specified title And mandatory.
Also, do not forget that many companies still have not upgraded their game engines to match the capabilities of the new generation, and this matter may require a lot of time, especially with new developers and companies looking to collect profits before any new step, so we may see a lot of upcoming titles for new generation devices. Unfortunately, it relies on outdated engines based primarily on current generation technologies.
As for the second factor, it is technical and it may be the reason for seeing the low performance in new generation games for a long time and perhaps until its end. It depends on the new technologies that are now available to developers and they can use it to improve the graphics quality in their games such as Ray Tracing, Shadow techniques and Volumetric Lightining and other modern technologies that many developers have begun to rely on to improve the visual appearance of their games.
All these technologies need to exploit a large part of the processing capabilities of the new generation devices, whether the GPU graphics card or the CPU, and thus the weakest link will be sacrificed here, which is the frame rate, which is reduced to a minimum in order to provide the required power to run games with the required graphic quality. .
I do not want to dive into the technical field much, as the goal here is that I just want to clarify that despite the advancement of technology and the doubling of strength, but on the other hand there is an accelerated development in the field of game development and more doors are being opened in order to give these games a high visual and technical quality that can only be imagined After seeing it with our eyes, and in every generation, we used to say that this is the last level of graphics power, and we do not think that we will see stronger than that, but we are surprised with every new generation, whether from home appliances or computers, that there are many things that we were ignorant of that are now available in games and so with every generation.
I would also point out, however, that this limited performance is not limited to home gaming devices, but also in the powerful GPU cards that technology companies such as Nvidia and AMD offer from time to time, and we recently saw how the new generation card from Nvidia could not maintain the performance of some games With the expected quality, there are some games that I barely managed to run at 30fps, but on the other hand, a high resolution of 8K was used.
In the end, it will be in the developer's hand to go in the direction he wants, in some games the developer wants to focus on high performance, so he gives up some visual effects such as light tracking technology or perhaps reduces the clarity to make it 1440P instead of 4K in order to raise the performance to 60 or even 120 frames / s This is often seen in online shooting and shooting games that need better performance to give the player a better experience, while other developers focus on the visual aspect and enrich their game worlds with many details that dazzle the player, such as using light tracking technology, shadows, physical effects, etc. This we see in open world games where At that time, performance is sacrificed, which eventually settles at 30fps, depending on the strength of the game's quality.
In the mid-current generation PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One X, and with the next generation, some developers will provide more than one mode for playing games, which makes the experience similar to the experience of a personal computer so that if the player wants to enjoy the game graphics and raise the resolution to 4K, he can choose the style of graphics quality so that The performance is reduced to a minimum according to the developer, while there is a performance mode in which the graphics quality is reduced in exchange for an increase in performance to 60 and perhaps 120 frames / s, which is good for satisfying all players.
In the end, even with the leap of the new generation of home appliances, there is always a corresponding leap in the techniques of designing and developing games that makes them exploit more technical capabilities in these devices to make them perhaps limited to some developers despite their strength.