PlayStation 4 and Xbox One Performance Compared by Devs
Claims the PlayStation 4 is up to 50 per cent faster.
September 13, 2013
by Luke Karmali
A number of "high-level game development sources" have claimed the PlayStation 4 is around 50 per cent faster than the Xbox One, with the difference being both "significant" and "obvious".
Edge conducted interviews with anonymous industry insiders, most of whom agreed that the memory reads on Sony's console are up to 50 per cent quicker, with the Arithmetic Logic Unit also being about 50 per cent faster.
This led a developer to claim that, without optimisation, a platform-agnostic dev build would appear around*30FPS in 1920×1080 on PlayStation 4, but at a slower "20-something" FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. Microsoft is aware of the issue, and the recent changes to the console's GPU were done in a bid to combat this. Despite this, a developer has downplayed the real effects that will be felt by the move, saying "The clock speed update is not significant, it does not change things that much...Of course, something is better than nothing."
“
The clock speed update is not significant, it does not change things that much...Of course, something is better than nothing.
Despite the launch of both consoles due to happen in a couple of months, things can still change. The graphics driver in particular has been singled out as a sticking point for both consoles, though once again sources have said Microsoft is lagging slightly.
The Xbox One does have some advantages over the PS4 however, with one dev explaining, "Let’s say you are using procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces – that is, using a lot of memory writes and not much texturing or ALU – Xbox One will be likely be faster."
Fans have been trying to deduce which console will contain more raw power since they were announced. Just last week, Microsoft's director of product planning Albert Penello argued claims that the PS4 offered better performance that the Xbox One were misguided.*Despite the supposed gap in performance, everyone's agreed that it'll be near-impossible to notice in multiplatform launch window titles, most of which will near-identical due to time constraints.
While all the developers seem to suggest the PS4 will have greater potential in terms of performance, how this translates into reality remains to be seen. From a financial stand-point for developers, it makes more sense to work optimise towards the lowest common denominator (in this case, allegedly Xbox One) rather than create two different versions.
The Xbox One is due to launch globally on November 22, while the PlayStation 4 will be available in North America on November 15 and in Europe on November 29.
