Elden Ring on Visual Comparisons; PS4 Pro and Xbox One X Hold Their Ground

Elden Ring is From Software's first game targeting 9th-gen consoles, and it's releases for those platforms (and possibly a PC version) are the apple of the Japanese developer's eye. But what about owners of older consoles? Well, there is a chance that they will also experience a relatively comfortable adventure with the title, at least on the most powerful last-gen models. Hope for this give visual comparisons Elden Ring recorded on different consoles, published by the ElAnalitsaDeBits channel on YouTube and Digital Foundry. You can watch the footage below.

The console footage comes from recent network test of the game, so we're talking about a fairly early version. Perhaps that's why Elden Ring suffers from some minor animation fluidity issues across all platforms, even on Xbox Series X and PS5. Another thing is that the unstable framerate is a problem typical of FromSoftware games, especially visible on PS4 and XONE.

The more powerful versions of 8th-gen platforms, the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, fare much better. It's true that stable (or unstable) 60 fps is out of the question on both devices, but I don't think anyone expected that, since it was impossible even in the old Dark Souls 3 (not to mention Sekiro ). Also PS5 and XSX won't offer consistent 60 fps in Elden Ring, even in performance mode.

Bandai Namco confirmed that after the release, Elden Ring on PS4 Pro and XONE X will run at a locked 30 fps, something neither device has had much of an issue with so far. Both consoles have kept animation fluidity at 30-40 fps. What's more, the Xbox One X version sometimes performed better than the newer Xbox Series S (albeit resolution dependent).

Of course, even the XSS has an advantage over the 8th geneneration in terms of faster load times, with the PS5 and XSX adding more detailed graphics and higher resolution (up to native 4K in quality modes).

Elden Ring won't run at 60 fps on PS4 Pro, but it should have no problem at 30 FPS. Source: Digital Foundry.

Things are much worse on the basic PS4 and XONE models, contrary to earlier reports. On both platforms there are dips below 30 fps. The Xbox One is the worst performer here, dropping down to just 20 fps at times in Digital Foundry's testing.

It should be noted that while in the context of FromSoftware's previous game tests it's better not to believe too much in major optimization tweaks, the possibility cannot be completely ruled out. The Network Test lacked even the announced ray tracing support, which - as is widely known - can have a significant impact on the game's performance. This option will not be available at launch - we will receive it as part of the update for PS5 and XSX.

It's possible, then, that FromSoftware will make improvements to ensure a comfortable RTX gameplay, while also improving the game engine's performance. In fact, one could even argue that this is why the developers have pushed back the title's debut by a whole five weeks.

The presence or absence of such improvements should be revealed next year. Elden Ring will debut on February 25, 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, XOne and XSX/S.