Playstation 4 - Frame Rate Issue Problem

[AkashiXI]

That's actually normal for the PS4 version. In a less dense populated area you will get 60 fps, but when you move to a large area with other players then you can forget the 60fps. All you can do like on PC is limit the amount of characters that are displayed on screen at once. The PS4 is a huge step over the PS3 version, but in no way shape or form is it anywhere near performance wise to a good PC.

It's not that, I've experienced these issues the OP is talking about, but ever since I got my ps4. There are times where if you're looking at a certain direction, popular or not, the FPS dips really low. To me it happens when I look at WhiteBrim when I'm on the north side looking south. It also happens at the snow cloak entrance. I have no idea why it does this, and it doesn't seem to be a hardware issue (my ps4 isn't overheating, fan noise is minimal).

[Mjollnir]

Sounds like it's the Dravanian army amassing...

[TouchandFeel]

Do the frame-rates stay that low or do the start to climb back up and stabilize?

This could be a number of things causing this.
1) as mentioned it could be due to the recent population boom caused by the free login campaign as well as the release of the gold saucer. As far as I can tell, characters are some of the most taxing things on the system so large groups of them, such as those around player hubs will cause a noticeable dip in performance.
2) It could just be the occlusion/loading causing the frame-rate drops and you never really noticed it before or it has become compounded and therefore worse due to #1 above. When first entering into or the system loading an area, there will often be a noticeable dip in frame-rate as the system begins to cache and render the assets for that area. Often the frame-rate will stabilize as the assets and characters are cached and loaded in, but if you move away from the area and the system unloads the areas you will notice that dip when you move back since the system is then having to load them again. Ignoring player population, some areas are just more system intensive than others and will have cause lower frame-rates due to them being more graphically fancy-schmancy and eating up more resources or them not being optimized quite as well as other areas.
3) While the most unlikely, your system could be having hardware issues. Is it only this game that is having decreased performance? Is your console running hotter than it used to? Are there any other strange random graphical anomolies occurring? Any and all of which may point to something up with your system. Again, this is the most unlikely possibility but shouldn't be ruled out.

IMO it is most likely a combination of #1 and #2.
Even I, playing on PC, have noticed a more pronounced drop in frame-rate and area loading time recently, but it is always in areas that players gather and I have definitely noticed an increase in the number of players milling about in these areas.

Best of luck with getting this all figured out.

[Makado]

People are not understanding. You can recreate this frame rate drop in these certain areas like in the Odin fight. Which doesn't have a bunch or people to load. Its some sort of graphics provlem, not "on S ranks you get lag and less loading to".

[JonLuso]

I've noticed this, too, and this is the only explanation I could come up with given the nature of the game:

The PS4, compared to the PS3, is rendering most assets at a higher quality. Given that, it can also render most locations with a much larger draw distance (discarding the need for fogging to "hide" the surrounding location); that means that it also renders part, if not a lot, of that terrain.

Regardless of the population in a given area, the game still is rendering said area, and although the PS4 is a step above the PS3, it still struggles to render these areas simply due to the load it's getting from the current situation as well as background areas.

I notice this a lot in Urth's Fount and Coerthas. These areas are big compared to most, but it's not just that; moving the camera and getting the FPS is dependent on the player location. So if you moved closer to the background area and looked back to where you were, you may still get the same FPS drop. However, looking towards an area exit won't produce these effects. That's because beyond the exit there is nothing much else to render, hence the FPS being stable.

Really just has to do with the fact that the PS4 actually renders mostly everything in its totality; unlike the PS4, the PS3 is customized to the point to where it doesn't render most of the assets in a given area until you step within a few yalms of them. Even then, it loads a low-res texture of the object until you get even closer. The PS3 chooses what to load based on location whereas the PS4 just loads everything flat-out (one thing on the PS4 that is adjusted is the shadows of players on PS4. If you zoom out while standing next to lots of players, only your shadow stays whole, for the most part, while everyone else's turns into a low-res version of themselves/a standard shadow placeholder. If you zoom back in, it returns to normal for everyone around you; this is due to the fact that the PS4 is experiencing a lot of load because the more one zooms out, the more it needs to render, which means its essentially rendering everything "on-screen" at once and then rendering everything else off-screen as cached assets, which implies a lower quality.).

However, I think that the PS4 is still a bit lacking in terms of hardware performance; 8 GB of RAM doesn't mean anything if the CPU and/or GPU are bottlenecking it. It's good enough for this game, but because of its nature to render most of the assets as-is without any adjustments, you'll get those unavoidable FPS drops. The PC version is the same way, except nothing in the game is adjusted; meaning that no shadows are toned down or all terrain is rendered immediately when the zone loads. I've experienced these drops ever since I've gotten the game on PS4 on its launch day; nothing has changed since then.

[Drazzan]

Thanks everyone for their replies so far, but as mentioned I don't believe this is at all tied to population. Thank you for everyone's time and patience in replying.

...These areas are big compared to most,...The PS3 chooses what to load based on location whereas the PS4 just loads everything flat-out ...

Your summary is the most likely, and I appreciate your time writing it up. Do you think this is something we could get changed? If the PS4 had calculations to cull based on distance and view, then it would solve the issue. This might be a tall order for the developers to implement, being so busy with the expansion, but I feel that this might be even more pronounced in Heavensward when it comes to zones that are seemingly more than double what Coerthas is, in all directions.

[JonLuso]

From what I've seen, they've done SOME customizing for the PS4, and it's not entirely a port of the PC version.

To be honest, the FPS drops are not that bad, either, but if the developers were to go out of their way to further optimize the PS4 version, that would be time spent and I highly doubt they'll do so, just like you said.

Again, though, I don't really mind it, but it IS noticeable. It could be fixed, sure, but that would mean that the PS4 would need to have its draw distance lowered to the point to where it only loads a fraction of it. It'll still function the same, only it won't load the background unnecessarily. The only thing that is lost is the sense of realism, but I doubt most people care about this and favor a more stable platform.

[Rhas]

TThe PS4 is a huge step over the PS3 version, but in no way shape or form is it anywhere near performance wise to a good PC.

That depends on your computer and how much money you have sunk into it and good PC is rather subjective. There are many different things that can affect performance from RAM to processor caching and all the way through to the ISP you use.

[Slappah]

Can confirm the lag in Odin, it's so odd though it's only at a certain angle..

I've also noticed this in coerthas.

But, these are very minor issues and honestly I'm not really going to complain. Every other instance I do is a solid fps. 'One' angle in Odin (that I never face anyway) with a dip in fps isn't a problem with me.

Now 72m slaughter and Sranks drop in fps quite a bit but, with slaughter I can understand that. Same with the S ranks.

[whiskeybravo]

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Rhyou knows what's up.. I don't care what DM says about you :P