Titanfall 2 PS4 MP ‘Tech Test’ Runs At 900P With Visible FPS Drops

Making its series debut on PS4, Titanfall 2 runs at a native 900p on Sony’s machine. This early multiplayer ‘tech test’ also reveals the state of the game’s optimization right now – mostly hitting 60fps with v-sync always engaged, but with visible drops. However, there’s plenty of time to improve this by its October 28.

[Aloy-Boyfriend]

The tech test is living up to its name i see

[Genuine-User]

Yep. Here's what a dev from Respawn had to say:

"Coders (like Calen!) have been working their butts off since this build was made to get the game running as smooth as possible. As was stated, this build is off an old branch of code and was made specifically to test our new server hosting system with Multiplay, Networks infrastructure, matchmaking, etc. This is not a new-school style "beta", aka demo, of a finished product - this is the real deal pre-alpha; bugs and all. I think I branched off our main dev line about 8 weeks ago. At this stage of development that is a huge amount of time, not to mention the time we have left before ship. The guys have put in serious effort and there's some tricks up their sleeves yet for performance and IQ. Obviously we can't go into any specifics, since nothing is guaranteed to ship yet (gotta get QA approval on any features and all that), but I would wager dollars to donuts you guys will see much more stable performance in the retail game. These kinds of publicly playable test builds are always tricky - they usually come right around the time all the departments are trying to jam in their last bit of content goodness, and right before we have had the time to really optimize as much as possible around a not-changing-quite-as-much content set. In a perfect world content would have been done months earlier so you'd all be seeing much more "finished" performance - but then the game wouldn't have as much rad stuff in it. Regardless, the first year or so of development had the engineering department doing some serious effort on optimizations on core engine stuff. Compared to the first game, Titanfall 2 is MUCH more consistent and solid. Comments from the DF crew are legit on that front - we're doing way more every 16.67ms compared to the first game.

Also, if you'll notice on the DF video the drops are usually due to overdraw from particles. I know there's been a lot of work done on mitigating that since this build. If DF had done any framerate testing on the 8v8 Pilots only mode (where Titans aren't throwing giant walls of fire or exploding in your face all the time) we're pretty much at 60fps 95% of the time even in the Tech Test build. Thats the kind of performance we're striving for - whether we'll hit it or not on the crazier MP modes with tons of AI? We'll see. I don't think any of us would say we'll be locked 60fps 100% of the time, though, as that is just unrealistic for a game that can have such intense peaks of insanity with Pilots+Titans+AI all on screen at once. We'd have to set the ceiling for res + IQ so low just to compensate that it would hurt the rest of the game.

Anyways! I hope everyone has fun with the Tech Test and likes that shiney new PBR renderer! Lots of goodies have been jammed in since the first game - special shout out to Calen and the guys who did the heavy lifting on the PS4 version of the engine, including our own temporal AA, high quality bloom/streak, superfast DOF, (much) higher res cubemaps, and more!"

http://m.neogaf.com/showthr...

[BossBattle]

Well we know from the Gears of War 4 beta that a lot can be changed before release. Titanfall 2 will be ok because those are veterans over there at Respawn. People there have worked on everything from God Of War to Call Of Duty.

[Kornholic]

Why are people downvoting this? That was an interesting read!

[_-EDMIX-_]

Good read!

[Gazondaily]

I'm glad you've learnt your lesson from the Gears beta fiasco ☺

Titanfall is gonna rock!

[Eonjay]

This is the most on point and complete explanation I have ever heard.

[AstroCyborg]

they need to lower the resolution fps>graphics

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Lower it further than 900p? Do you want SD quality? Anyway, as already said, it's a tech test, with all the expected bugs and unoptimized code.

[TheUndertaker85]

720 is still HD and lower than 900.

People just don't want to hear that their machines, namely PS4, can't always hit 1080p or even 900p without sacrificing framerate. Otherwise would you prefer your 1080p with 30fps?

You can't have your whole cake and eat a piece too. The old adage doesn't work as you can have your cake and eat it too. You just don't eat the whole damn thing and expect to have cake.

[DLConspiracy]

480p is considered SD.

[TheUndertaker85]

@DLConspiracy: 480p is actually considered EDTV or Enhanced Definition TV.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...

While only slightly better than 480i it exceeds SDTV standards. Many early plasma TVs that were introduced before 720 and higher used 480p as a selling point and generally better than 480i or below.

Sony actually produced WEGA TVs with 480p as a standard.

[DLConspiracy]

Well 480i but he was being a bit drastic. Much the same when people act like any console this Gen is similar to last gen.

[Utalkin2me]

@TheUndertaker85

480i/480p is standard in america for TV resolution and is not considered HD. 480p does not exceed sdtv standards. It's the exact same resolution the only difference, one is interlaced and the other is progressive. Interlaced draws the screen in 2 half's while progressive draws the screen in one pass.

[LordMaim]

What they need to do is fix their code.

[Becuzisaid]

Wow that's pretty unacceptable to me. Visually this does not seem to be a heavy hitter at all. I understand going for 60fps in this game, and if that means sub 1080p resolution, then so be it. But I would expect better out of this game. There's not that much going on.

Edit: guys give it a rest. I clearly said that sub 1080p is fine, just less than 60fps at a lower resolution is unacceptable to me. If it's not for you, then fine. I just think the ps4 has more intensive games that perform better.

[GUTZnPAPERCUTZ]

Look at COD, it runs at 1080p and 60. This game looks very similar graphically but a lot more going on, bigger maps, more players/Bots and Mechs so 900p is understandable. Battlefield has to do the same even though it looks better and on a larger scale

[Gitgud]

Tech test, understand that. They have to compromise the res so we can get smoother gameplay, and honestly that's all I could care about right now. The game will hit 1080p 60fps at launch.

[daynnight365]

That may be a reach

[Christopher]

It'll likely hit 900p60fps, but I don't think it will hit 1080p60fps at launch without reducing graphical quality noticeably.

[Gitgud]

The tech test is pre-alpha, how is it a reach? Jeez man.

[jukins]

Read the article it's a tech test based off pre alpha code that's been updated recently just for the tech test

[ONESHOTV2]

you are going to say this is not a heavy hitter but uncharted MP is ? right

[MasterCornholio]

He's talking about graphics.

And why drag in one of the best games of the year into this?

@One

No that's just you being paranoid. But when Be said heavy hitter he was making a reference to graphics not gameplay.

"Visually this does not seem to be a heavy hitter at all."

[ONESHOTV2]

MasterCornholio-- so becuase you said it's one of the best games this year it should be excluded from any conversation that has something negative to say about it ? lol i might be marked for trolling if i continue so i will stop

[DLConspiracy]

As always these games are more about fluidity and reaction than pretty pictures. There is a lot more going on than one might think. So I'm OK with it being sub 1080p as long as the game is fluid. That's more important to most people I would think.

[TKCMuzzer]

Another developer with experience in making games? No, didn't think so. Theres more to it than just observing other wise we would all be making games.

[YinYangGaming]

Even worse there's some reports saying the X1 version runs sub-720p, even for a tech test that doesn't look too promising

[LexHazard79]

Wasnt the last game 720p? I look for it to run same on Xbox One when all said and done.

Edit: It was some wierd res...

[bestofthebest]

It was 792p I can't forget that res

[KiwiViper85]

792p

[xtheblackparade]

HD ready + :')

[WellyUK]

60 fps is what it HAS to be. If that means a lower res then they have to take it.

[daynnight365]

Yup

[_-EDMIX-_]

Agreed. I'm fine with that

[raggy-rocket]

This really doesn't mean much. The gears of war 4 beta was using alpha graphics (even though they'd improved graphics far past that at that point) as a means of purely testing multiplayer capability. Respawn have gone one step further here to clarify that by literally calling it a multiplayer tech test. That's all it's testing, not resolution, fps, textures etc. Judge the final product.

(P.S It's best to note that nobody cared Gears 4 was using alpha graphics and judged it anyway. It's likely the same will happen here. And we wonder why some devs are scared off from doing betas..)

[GUTZnPAPERCUTZ]

So Im guessing it will still run at the weird 792p on X1 as the Original and 900p on PS4?

[LexHazard79]

That's what Im thinking as well.

[OpenGL]

Probably between 720p and 792p like the first game.

[itsmebryan]

Hey, that is what the built in upscaler are for. ;-). I'm really don't mind what the native resolution is the upscaler in the Xbox one ,my reciever, and tv do a great job. But, for. Anyone that played the first one the frame rate is more important.

[Gitgud]

it's a tech test for a reason.

[seanpitt23]

Yes these consoles was way out dated back in 2013 and now its getting embarrassing.

Just glad we are getting a upgrade mid gen they must of planned it all along knowing how weak these consoles was compared to the ps360 when they first launched

[Gitgud]

weak? look at UC4 pls.

[PygmelionHunter]

They are weak in reality, when compared to modern PC hardware. But fixed hardware does have its benefits.

For one, it pretty much forces developers to optimize and find workarounds to make the games run well, thus making them well acquainted with the console.

Naughty Dog, similarly to some of Nintendo's first party studios, are experts when it comes to squeezing whatever power they can find. They know their priorities.

Neo and Scorpio are likely going to break this methodology for most developers. What's the point of giving more raw power to developers every other year if they'll never get used to it long enough to master it?

[TheUndertaker85]

UC4 couldn't keep up 1080/60. The multiplayer settled for 900/60 while the singleplayer settled for 1080/30. Neither astonishing. Titanfall 2 will likely have more going on than Uncharted as well.

[marioJP87]

UC4 is 30 frames per second. These consoles are weak.

[jmc8888]

They were. I said before the reveals they needed 3-4 TFlops, and maybe even a little bit more. That it was best to wait until 2014. Well we got what we got, which was at launch about 30-40 percent of the power previous consoles launched at. I.E. 360 and PS3 against PC tech was over twice as powerful as compared to X1/PS4. So they really needed to be over double their power. On top of that, having a PC, I knew what it took to achieve 1080p/60 on current games, let alone to handle the better graphics coming down the line.

But I knew they'd go cheap, that's why I said they probably launch between a 560ti and a 670 in performance, and wasn't enough.

Remember when lots of console only players said The Last of Us was the best looking game? Well that was so wrong, just like UC4 is. Graphically, it sucks. Oh it has great direction. I get THAT. But that's not graphics. Having nice intricate set pieces, isn't the graphical fidelity level. You needed more power to pull that stuff off, but it's not 'graphics'. UC4 graphics was underwhelming. I thought it looked ugly on a technical level. That game could look so much better. I've seen many games that look graphically much, much better, even at 1080p, let alone high resolutions. Not to mention things like rock solid 60 FPS, or 120 FPS. Technically I thought that the UC4 graphics was pretty ugly. Battlefront on PS4 looked a lot better, but even that pales in comparison to what it can look like (and run like) on more powerful systems, and it's not close. These games are a few notches below what can be done, and that's just reality.

Neo and Scorpio will be nice, just like PS4/XB1 were nice, but unfortunately, Neo and Scorpio are like the 2016 and 2017 versions of PS4/XB1. They are still going to be relatively slightly below medium power as to what is out there for PC tech. Basically PS4 1.8 in 2013 = Neo 4.2 in 2016, and Scorpio 6 in 2017.

By the time Scorpio comes out Nvidia will likely have a 15-18 TFlop part (which is like 20 TFLops of AMD), which will be 3x-3.5x the power of the Scorpio. Even now the GTX 1070 will run circles around Scorpio. GTX 1070 stock it 6.45 TFlops, which generally boosts over 7 TFlops, and is equivalent to more like 9 TFlops of AMD. On top of that a PC CPU can be an i7 which simply destroys what's in the consoles.

To really match the power of the 360/PS3, Neo would need to be 8 TFlops, and Scorpio would need like 10. Remember the 360/PS3 could easily beat a Geforce 6800 ultra (the TOP end previous part) and in many ways was more like a 7800/7950, but with some features that wouldn't make it's way into ATI's PC GPU parts for two more generations. So in some ways it was more advanced that anything you could get on PC. It just had less ram.

So basically to be like a 360/PS3, we'd need the Neo to be basically a GTX 1080 with less ram, but with some features that would come with Volta. While the Scorpio would be a Volta GTX 1180 with less ram. (or AMD's equivalent). But nowadays they could easily do it with the same ram.

That said, the added power will definitely be welcome. NOW, you should get 1080/60 on everything, since this is basically enough to be to approach 120FPS in some games. They both can do some 4k, but not that well. If they wanted to patch old games for 4k support, they probably could achieve it, but 4k from 2017-2020 is going to need more than 4-6 AMD TFlops.

People can disagree if they want to, but none of this is wrong. NOT ONE LETTER.

[BossBattle]

This game has so much going on at one time that frames have to drop on the PS4 and Xbox One. Only a PC and Scorpio can play it like it should be played.

[LP-Eleven]

Well, I'd imagine both NEO and Scorpio can run it "how it's meant to be run". Since we know very little of either machine, though, it's all speculation, anyway.

[HAHAHAHAHAHAHA]

By the time scorpio is out this game will be forgotten just like the first one.

[Wotbot]

900p is fine with more detailed graphics and smoother frame rate

[seanpitt23]

Detailed graphics goes out of the window when its 60fps

[3-4-5]

* Cool.....is it fun though ? Is it better than the first game ? That is mainly my concern....not 900 or 1080 p.

NES games are still good and they are no where near 1080p or HD.....

[PygmelionHunter]

Also nowhere near as easy lol

[ONESHOTV2]

i guess the reason for no pc beta is so that the consoles can look good this remind me of another game that just came out

[TheUndertaker85]

That's likely because PC will not be locked to one certain configuration like consoles will be due to the immense differences available in PCs. Dev Kits also tend to offer a little more than retail consoles.

So while that POS computer may not be able to run the game at all hulking PCs may run in 4k. There are options on PC however to scale up or down how much resources are available to the game, making it easier for devs to explore different possibilities. Not every one but enough so to list recommended specs.

This is to say they choose what framerate and resolution will work best on consoles and get the title running on all. If your PC can't meet the minimum specs well, piss on you. If your PC exceeds those specs your experience can both be smoother and more detailed.

[ONESHOTV2]

my pc does exceed those specs and they said they wanted gamers to break the game but no pc version isnt that strange ?

[agame914]

love my ps4 more then my pc so......

[ONESHOTV2]

agame914--- enjoy what you play on but i never said anything about the ps4

[agame914]

no doubt

[andibandit]

Nah, it's because they want to test the backend(Server), guess it's easier without a million pc users flooding their forums about this and that not working, for their specific pc setup.

[ONESHOTV2]

wouldn't your game be better when it's released if you are getting feedback from thousands of pc gamers than a handful in the console community how many people on console do you think will play the game and then give feedback. pc and console have two different communities when it comes to alpha and beta builds.

[corroios]

Better wait a little more before starting with all the rez battle.

[hiawa23]

The consoles are what they are. If this is the best they can do, well, it just is.

[ARESWARLORD]

This would be a game to get on the Neo

[Seafort]

Hey at least they are testing the console versions. The PC version isn't even being tested before launch it seems.

I'll stick to Battlefield 1 for my MP action. I don't see good things coming from this game on PC without a public beta test.

[Artemidorus]

Pretty much the same game as last time.

PC modders would do a better job 1/10 and you get the 1 for new maps.

[peewee11016]

Same thing with titanfal beta on xbox one same shit. They even said themselves it was a tech test and opti was not done

[marioJP87]

People expect Neo/Scorpio to remedy these 60 fps problems. When developers push these games graphically on Neo/Scorpio, you better believe they'll be 30 FPS (some 60). Most of you even said the same that most (some said all) PS4 games will 1080/60 and look what happens when they're pushed. Even some last gen remasters cant hit 1080/60.

[jmc8888]

What are you talking about? Titanfall, which ran like crap on X1, ran great on my old GTX 970. On my newer GTX 1070 I can easily get 4k/60 or 1080/120 on pretty much max settings, which are numerous levels ahead of X1 settings.

Neo/Scorpio will run this much better. I have little double that even Neo could hit 1080/60, as long as the CPU they put in that thing is decent.

PC's can easily destroy Titanfall 1, and this one doesn't look that much more taxing.

PS4 is nice, but isn't powerful, and wasn't when it released. Remember even the PS4 is basically has the power of 2010 behind it, while XB1 is like 2009.

[marioJP87]

I'm not talking about Neo/Scorpio running these current games at 60 FPS. Maybe I should have worded it differently. I'm talking about Neo/Scorpio running up to date games as they are released at 60 FPS. Any game released in this gen can run at 60 FPS wihile compromising things but when developers want to graphically demand and push these games far, they'll hit 30 FPS ... just as most of these games. No matter what GPU you have, they can be maxed.

[itsmebryan]

I remember when people said Titanfall didn't run at 1080p because Xbox one was too weak. Well, it seem PS4 can't handle1080p either. I wonder if the is due to AI. Xbox one off loads it to servers and I wonder if PS4 has to handle it internally? I would be interested to hear how they handled that.

[jmc8888]

No, because PS4 is relatively weak. This is what I was saying since the reveals of BOTH. That BOTH didn't have the power needed to reliably run games 1080/60 throughout their lifespan.

That was because if X1/PS4 matched what the PS3/360 were at their time tech wise, they'd both be over double what the PS4 launched at.

So basically another way to look at it is that Neo is what X1/PS4 should of been in the first place. Because literally that's the power we needed to launch this console cycle. PS4 didn't get that, X1 didn't even get close. But now that it's 2016, THIS power level can only reliably hold for another 3 years which is when I suspect 4k will be fully mainstream. After all 4ktv's have been as low as $249 for over 2 years. (like the Seiki 39" 4k/30 1080/120 tv)

That's why we're seeing many games on both console falling short. It's also a reason why there is a Neo and Scorpio coming. Of course PSVR for Sony and Microsoft's need to reset the base away from X1's disaster are good secondary reasons for each.

Meanwhile Titanfall 1 can easily be run at 4k/60 on a GTX 1070, and my old 970 which is what I played Titanfall on while it was still a thing, ran it very, very well. Far higher resolution, settings, and framerate. Titanfall is not some huge power hungry game, just like I'm sure Titanfall 2 isn't. It just needs more power than a 1.3/1.8 TFlop consoles with piss poor CPU's in them.

Now people are starting to see what I've been saying since their reveals (and actually BEFORE, since the rumors were they were going to be underpowered and WERE).

[MasterCornholio]

Didn't they say they are using some sort of multiplatform cloud technology?

https://www.vg247.com/2016/...

"Of course, one reason Respawn has been able to benefit from expanded cloud support is the flexibility of multiple platforms. “Obviously the partnership with Microsoft was fantastic for us,” Respawn CEO Frank Zampella said of the days when Titanfall was Xbox and PC-exclusive. “But now as we’re expanding out, the more flexibility we have, the better service we can offer the players. Being on Azure and Google and Amazon, it’s just added benefit.”"

[Kokyu]

Looks good some friends are streaming it from Ps4. Ill be playing a bit when I get home.

[RomanPSX]

If ps4 runs at 900 xbox its going to run at 480p. Lol.
Jk both should run 900. Or xbox may run at 792 like the first one but with v sync on, cause the tearing on tf1 was horrible.

[_LarZen_]

Tested it and it felt just as boring as the first one. The only reason I will be picking this up is if the singleplayer campaign is really good.