Battlefield 4 on Next-Gen Consoles Comparable to Medium Settings on PC – Upscaled From 720P

Hassan Mujtaba

EA's next generation Battlefield 4 is the definite choice for any gamer who's into first person shooter. The game offers a fully immersive online shooter experience with its powerful Frostbite 3 engine and social features which are offered by Battlelog 2.0.

Battlefield 4 on Next-Gen Consoles Comparable to Medium Settings on PC

A few days ago, it was revealed that Battlefield 4 on the next generation platforms which include PlayStation 4 and Xbox One would be running at native 720P resolution upscaled to 1080P to maintain a constant 60 FPS. Was this a limitation on the hardware side or the unability of DICE to optimize the coding for the upcoming consoles was never told. But there are reports which seem to show that the next generation consoles aren't as powerful enough to tackle a high-end PC even with their so-called 'Super Charged' PC architecture powered by AMD. I do want to mention AMD in this article, PC is the lead platform for Battlefield 4 and any DICE Frostbite 3 game so this means that PC is optimized for Battlefield 4 and more specifically AMD since they are EA's newly acquired hardware partner.

Developers working on next-generation consoles mentioned that the transition of games from consoles to PC or PC to consoles would be easier this generation since all the platforms have a similar x86 architecture which will allow ease of development so saying that this was DICE's fault for not optimizing the game for next generation consoles would be awfully inaccurate.

Pixelenemy has a report which is actually based on a video from guy who got a hands on look at the PlayStation 4 version of Battlefield 4 at Gamescom 2013. The guy who goes by the name of Jackfrags, mentions that while the PlayStation 4 offers an incremental graphics and performance boost over current generation consoles such as 60 FPS and better lightning/shadows, the game however fails to match the graphics of a high-end PC and looks more like its maxed out around what's comparable to medium settings on the PC. So next generation consoles won't only have a lower resolution but would also have lower graphics than what one should expect from the consoles.

The site goes off to say that the amount of graphics the PlayStation 4 displays at its $400 US cost is absolutely fine considering a high-end PC would cost $1000-$2000 US. But this statement is entirely inaccurate, a PC which is able to match or even excel visually compared to the PlayStation 4 would cost much less than $1000 US. Being a PC builder myself, i would say a decent setup which would be able to do 1080P with a good amount of visual detail (High Settings) can easily be found for around $699-$899.

Battlefield 4 isn't the only game making sacrifices on the frame rates or graphics, Sony's first party developer Guerrilla games are making Killzone: Shadow Fall which is sacrificing frame rate (30 FPS) for higher resolution. I noted that the multiplayer section of the game is said to be running at 60 FPS which could obviously be running with lower graphics detail otherwise why can’t the Killzone developers stick to 60 FPS on the single player too? It isn’t much of a hassle and if they wanted to, they could have kept both single and multiplayer modes running at 60 FPS.

Battlefield 4 arrives on 30th October 2013 for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and later for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. To learn more details regarding Battlefield 4 BETA, Premium and to check out gameplay trailers, head over to the link here.

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