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Question about Xbox One vs PS4

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My TLDR on Fallout 4, is that XBO and PS4 performance is similar, and this particular game runs better from a SSD on both PS4 and XBO:

The NX video for Fallout 4 mainly highlighted that in the version of the game he measured, the PS4 had more frame drops during Autosave sequences. The DF article seemed to be overly emphasizing that on the XBO some frame stutter from asset streaming occurs with the stock HDD, and somewhat unfairly trumpeted that XBO dropped to "0 FPS" all over the place. Both versions of the game have drops when transitioning between areas as well, due to heavier asset streaming. I was more concerned about areas where either version of the game could drop to below 30 FPS for a bit during heavy gameplay sequences, since that'd be more difficult to patch out, and have a more real effect on gameplay. The PS4 had trouble with some effects, like volumetric fog for example.

In 1.02 Fallout 4's PS4 performance is improved, with more stable framerate when effect related drops occurred, but you're still going to see a little bit of hickups during autosaves and transitioning areas. XBO still has trouble with asset streaming w/o a HDD upgrade vs the stock 5200rpm drive.

Given Fallout 4's load times, if I were an XBO owner I'd run the game from an external SSD anyway. Actually, for that matter, this is a game where PS4 owners would massively benefit from a SSD. Diamond City takes 45 seconds to load without one!

When the game finally gets to a better patched up state, I think Fallout 4 is going to be nearly identical on XBO vs PS4. Its mostly 30FPS on both systems with identical visuals, but the game just needs a little bit more time being optimized. With 1.02 the PS4 version probably has an edge due to the concentration the dev team had on improving performance there, but I think that's mostly irrelevant since XBO performance is going to be looked at soon too. The autosave frame drops, area transition hickups, and XBO "0 FPS drops" are mostly fixed by a SSD if you can make that upgrade, and this game benefits in load times significantly more than others on a SSD upgrade vs many other XBO or PS4 games. In some cases, load times are almost cut in half!
 
I don't think an SSD will help much over a hybrid drive or a 7200rpm drive since the consoles use SATA 2 and not SATA 3
 
postmortemIA said:
So what.. Even on SATA 1 there is huge difference in performance between ssd and hd. People who got really old laptops know that.
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In PC performance yes. But, due to how the consoles handle loading and things, it is marginal. Your point that SATA II isn't close to fully saturated with a 7200 rpm drive is valid though.
 
smackababy said:
Modify this and it is applicable for every "wine aficionado" and "audiophile" I've come across, and completely proven wrong consistently.

While, in some cases, there are differences in graphics. In only edge cases are they large enough you will notice while playing. And even then, if it bothers you to have "inferior" graphics on your console, you're too elitist for a console. Put on your big boy pants and buy a few [latest GFX card] and a 4k monitor.
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Meh, aliasing is one of those things where if you see it once, you cannot ever unsee it and you begin seeing jaggies everywhere.
 
postmortemIA said:
So what.. Even on SATA 1 there is huge difference in performance between ssd and hd. People who got really old laptops know that.
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The CPU isn't fast enough in the consoles to make the big difference you see and expect on a PC. They can hook any drive up and at some point the drive is going to be waiting for the CPU to do work. That's why every article that talks about upgrading the PS4 HDD and comparing load times says the difference is sometimes non existent. You get the most gain on the XB1 by using a USB 3.0 HDD externally. Plus I think there is a ton more overhead on the consoles because of needing connected friend list, PSN and XBL connectivity to always be connected etc. Eats up some resources.
 
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cmdrdredd said:
The CPU isn't fast enough in the consoles to make the big difference you see and expect on a PC. They can hook any drive up and at some point the drive is going to be waiting for the CPU to do work. That's why every article that talks about upgrading the PS4 HDD and comparing load times says the difference is sometimes non existent. You get the most gain on the XB1 by using a USB 3.0 HDD externally. Plus I think there is a ton more overhead on the consoles because of needing connected friend list, PSN and XBL connectivity to always be connected etc. Eats up some resources.
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Think that overhead is permanently saved, just in case, or could you possibly get a faster file transfer by taking the console offline? That'd be pretty sad, if it worked that way.
 
TLDR: Fallout 4 is just weird, and isn't typical of normal PS4/XBO game performance.

Fallout 4 is a pretty rare case where a SSD is a good improvement on PS4/XBO. The devs used an old engine that wasn't optimized to take good advantage of the XBO and PS4's big memory pools, so stutter, pop-in, and other asset streaming problems are way more prevalent than they should be. PC performance is actually ALSO pretty strange in this area, where min FPS especially is heavily tied to the speed of the system RAM. Bethesda is just terrible at optimizing games..... on PS4/XBO the primary bottleneck in area loads is storage performance, where in a lot of other console games the primary bottleneck is CPU performance.

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In most games for PS4 you'll hit a point of diminishing returns with a decent 7200rpm drive. The hardware decompression is actually pretty good, and there's a big pool of GDDR5 for devs to work with, so storage bottlenecks just basically show developer incompetence. Since initial area loads are often bottlenecked by CPU performance, faster storage only helps a little bit in a lot of situations.
 
Mondozei said:
So I got a guy willing to sell me an Xbone with Halo 5 for around $200, which I consider to be an okay deal, especially considering the console itself is less than 6 months old.

I have been thinking about getting a console more broadly, and I'm aware that PS4 is generally seen as more powerful but my question is: by how much? If I want to play casual games like BLOPS 3 or SW:BF, is there any major difference? And how about the player base? I know that PS4 has a higher installed player base, but does that mean that there are difficulties finding games with lots of players on the Xbone for major titles 2-3 months down the line? (I'm not counting exclusives like Halo who have their own massive fanbase).

Thanks!
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I've owned both since 2013. PS4 is a little more powerful. Feels about 10% more powerful. I use my Xbox 100 times more than my PS4 though, if that tells you anything.
 
postmortemIA said:
So what.. Even on SATA 1 there is huge difference in performance between ssd and hd. People who got really old laptops know that.
Click to expand...

As an extra storage drive the SSD is marginally faster than a hybrid drive on both the PS4 and Xbox One while significantly more expensive $/Gb. Now as a replacement for the OEM drive to run the OS off of, the SSD is significantly quicker than the hybrid drive.
 
cmdrdredd said:
Wireless sucks anyway even on the Xbox one. Wired is better but honestly not by much with these consoles.
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That's definitely not my experience. I use wireless through the xbox one and you can't tell the difference between wired and wireless. It's fast, snappy, and you can't feel any lag or lagginess in games.
 
slag said:
That's definitely not my experience. I use wireless through the xbox one and you can't tell the difference between wired and wireless. It's fast, snappy, and you can't feel any lag or lagginess in games.
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Agreed. Xbox One wireless is pretty good, PS4's is terrible.
 
I own both and I still can't get over how bad the Xbone UI still is. It's still convoluted and nothing is laid out cleanly. The PS4 UI isn't perfect but your games are right up front which is the most important part. Also the bumper buttons on the Xbone controller suck. They are much harder to press.
 
The new XBONE ui is much much better than the old one. I can actually figure out how to maneuver, sign in easily, go to my games, etc. I think its not perfect, but a big step in the right direction. My commonly played games are right there when I log in, and scroll down to the bottom and there is an apps and games container with the rest of my stuff. It's very simple and easy to navigate.
 
slag said:
That's definitely not my experience. I use wireless through the xbox one and you can't tell the difference between wired and wireless. It's fast, snappy, and you can't feel any lag or lagginess in games.
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No, it's bad. My phone can pull 180Mbps from my wireless and the Xbox can't even sustain over 60Mbps on a wired gigabit connection which is pathetic by comparison. This means downloading games takes forever compared to what it should.
 
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zerocool84 said:
I own both and I still can't get over how bad the Xbone UI still is. It's still convoluted and nothing is laid out cleanly. The PS4 UI isn't perfect but your games are right up front which is the most important part. Also the bumper buttons on the Xbone controller suck. They are much harder to press.
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The new controllers fix that, I don't know if you have tried them. They are soft and almost too easy to hit.
 
cmdrdredd said:
No, it's bad. My phone can pull 180Mbps from my wireless and the Xbox can't even sustain over 60Mbps on a wired gigabit connection. This means downloading games takes forever compared to what it should.
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Must be something in your network. My Xbox gets 230Mbps wired and 200-220Mbps wireless. Thats off my 200Mbps rated connection.

EDIT:
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I haven't ever done a comparison. I figure it will take hours to download a game anyway at minimum so I don't plan on playing anything for several hours. I just know that in games, there is no lag and everything is fast and snappy. It fully meets my expectations.
 
cmdrdredd said:
The new controllers fix that, I don't know if you have tried them. They are soft and almost too easy to hit.
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I have a 1TB Xbone which has the newer controllers with the headphone port and the bumpers still suck but the battery life is great and the sticks feel good.
cmdrdredd said:
No, it's bad. My phone can pull 180Mbps from my wireless and the Xbox can't even sustain over 60Mbps on a wired gigabit connection which is pathetic by comparison. This means downloading games takes forever compared to what it should.
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My downloads on Xbone suck bad as well. I've tried some of the fixes I've read and nothing has sped it up to PS4 speeds which downloads everything fast. It was horrible trying to download Forza 6 and Forza Horizon 2 at the same time.
 
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