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PS4 gamers can relax. It appears that No Man’s Sky runs at a steady 1080p/30fps for the most part, but be warned there are some noticeable dips.
According to Digital Foundry’s early analysis of the shipped game with the day one update installed, things are certainly impressive with densely populated procedurally generated worlds managing to never miss a beat.
“Whether it’s shooting chunks through the terrain, or sprinting around full-felt, that 30fps target doesn’t waver. And from the first 12 planets we’ve discovered and put to the test, it doesn’t appear to matter what climates or weather conditions are in play,” says DF.
There’s currently no motion blur, but some gamers will appreciate the image clarity this offers anyway.
However, this solid presentation does nosedive to 20fps or less when procedural generation is taxing the PS4’s CPU.
“Big drops do kick in when you really stress the engine, notably with fast movement near the ground in your aircraft,” DF continues. “For example, frame-rates can plummet once you land on a brand new planet, and then immediately boost across its surface. In this case, the PS4 is struggling to meet the 33.3ms per-frame render time, while generating new scenery and details on the fly. These are calculations made a split-second before revealing the new terrain or object, and when it can’t keep up, we see dips to the 20fps line, and sometimes even lower.”
Digital Foundry has recorded a worst case of just 13 frames per second, but thankfully players can limit the impact of frame drops with one simple trick.
“This lasts as long as you continue pressing the engine and keep boosting full-speed in one direction. But once you double back on yourself with a full 180 turn, or even slow down, suddenly we’re back to an even 30fps again. From here, the frame-rate issues disappear once you start moving again,” explains the tech blog.
There’s every chance performance will be improved in a future update, with creator Sean Murray already confirming that Temporal AA and his new cloud rendering tech will be patched into the game soon.
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Source: Digital Foundry
