By light of day, cloud simulation also radically alters the way shadows diffuse across the scene. As with Episode Duscae, it's a randomised variable that softens and sharpens floor shadows based on the position of rolling clouds. In piecing our comparison video together, this made matching up PS4 and Xbox One shots a very tricky process indeed. Even with time of day perfectly synced between each format, it causes some scenes to differ in hue - with the game's global illumination also factoring in to create varying results. Viewed at night, the two consoles can also look beautiful, and the way the city's lamp-lights bounce off its rain-soaked floors is a real visual high point of the demo.
Working around its variables in weather, both PS4 and Xbox One are equals in shadow quality, texture mapping, and lighting - each producing the same quality high dynamic range and light shafts. There is a difference between the two in effects, however; Xbox One visibly reduces the density of GPU-accelerated particles that burst outwards from activated buttons. It's notably pared back in this area, though curiously, PS4 and Xbox One offer matching effect levels in battle - with no cutbacks at all when casting fire spells or on melee strikes.
As a result, PS4 can at times look far cleaner than it did in Episode Duscae. We get a sharper 1080p presentation at points, while at others it's a slightly rougher image. On balance we're still usually looking at a 900p picture in Final Fantasy 15 for much of the duration, but there's now some leeway to either side of that figure. This logic also applies to Xbox One with its middle-ground 1408x792 native resolution. In reducing its rendering load to a theoretical minimum, 1568 x 882 is Xbox One's highest resolution in this demo, while its lowest point is just 1360 x 768.
We had hoped a shift to a dynamic resolution might address the game's frame-rate issues. On PS4 and Xbox One we saw sub-30fps dips aplenty in Episode Duscae - and this is sadly still true of the Platinum demo. Once again PS4 leads the charge by a margin of 5fps in matching stress-tests, where close-ups on Noctis see the engine struggling on each format. However, prolonged drops to 20fps (and a low of 15fps on each) are in evidence during the final boss battle on PS4 and Xbox One. Alpha effects are the expected culprit in battle, which is at odds with the rapid pace of its combat. With six months to go until Final Fantasy 15's launch, there's still time to tinker, but given we've seen little change since the last demo, it is a growing concern.
Originally Posted by Slay
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