Mass Effect Legendary Edition Benchmarks on PS4 and Xbox One

The editors of Digital Foundry have checked how 8th-genconsoles handle the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition collection. Some of the test results are quite surprising.

IN A NUTSHELL:

In Quality mode, the Xbox One X performs best;
PlayStation 4 Pro performs best in Performance mode;
Base PS4 and Xbox One variants maintain around 30 fps at 1080p;
All 8th-gen consoles are better off in Quality mode.

Digital Foundry has put together a video that shows Mass Effect: Legendary Edition running on all previous-gen consoles - PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One S and Xbox One X.

Each of the platforms offers two modes, which emphasize either the image quality or the number of fps of animation. Choosing the former on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One S gives us 1080p resolution and around 30 fps, while on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X we get dynamic 4K resolution with the same number of fps. In terms of performance, the base PS4 model and the more powerful Xbox One variant perform best in Quality mode, with Microsoft's machine deserving a special mention, as it offers a near-perfectly stable 30 fps at 4K (this value is maintained even in extremely demanding scenes, such as the beginning of Mass Effect 3).

The PlayStation 4 Pro fares slightly worse in Quality mode, which is most likely due to the overly high resolution. The base Xbox One, on the other hand, offers a pretty decent experience, with a fairly stable 30 fps - ddops occur mainly in more problematic locations or sections of the game.

In performance mode, we get more fps, but the resolution on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X drops to 1440p. There's no fps cap here (on the base PS4 and Xbox One S this is a major change, as the resolution remains at 1080p), and performance varies widely. In this case, PlayStation 4 Pro is the best performer, ahead of Xbox One X and PlayStation 4. The lineup are closed by the Xbox One S. Interestingly, these results apply only to gameplay - during cutscenes the number of fps on Sony's consoles drops dramatically and looks worse than the competition.

Unfortunately, none of the machines are able to approach a stable 60 fps in Performance mode, and the constant fps fluctuations make gameplay less comfortable once it's turned on. On every platform, Digital Foundry believes Quality Mode is the better way to experience Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.