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PS4 Pro Fail: ‘Skyrim’ Shows Frame-Rate Drops Worse Than On Original PlayStation 4

By Patrick Frye
Published on: 03:34 PST, Nov 10, 2016

The PS4 Pro fails to live up to one of its earliest tests. When tasked with running Skyrim, Sony’s promise of better performance, unfortunately, turned out false. The open-world RPG was allegedly the first game made with 4K support built into the code, and this could be a bad sign.

When the PlayStation 4 Pro was announced, there were a lot of rumors and speculation while Microsoft revealed plans for their upcoming Scorpio. The Xbox One upgrade arriving in 2017 is said to be even more powerful than anything Sony has on the market right now. Of course, outside developers, nobody has actually had time with it.

The Xbox One Scorpio could suffer from the same problems as the PS4 Pro, and we won’t find out until it launches next year.

The PlayStation 4 Pro was said to be able to play all current PS4 titles with up-scaled graphics via HDR, and improved performance in the way of a 30fps minimum. However, according to Eurogamer, the latter may not be the case after all. When Skyrim was given the test drive, the graphics weren’t up-scaled as much as they actually ran at full 4K resolution. The frame-rate, unfortunately, turned out to be worse at times, possibly due to pushing out more information and the processor not being able to catch up.

“For example, scenes [which] feature use of alpha-heavy effects cause frame-rates to deviate from the desired 30fps target. In like-for-like situations, the PS4 Pro game sees a 2-3fps deficit, resulting in more noticeable stutter compared to the title running on the standard PS4 console. The base PS4 performance isn’t impacted to the same degree, with only a few 1-3fps drops cropping up on occasion across a general run of play.”

Other titles such as Mad Max and Fallout 4 are already notorious for horrible frame-rate drops and load times, and the PS4 Pro could make it worse if they run at a full 4K natively.

This could easily be a sign that Sony needs to work on improving the PS4 Pro with a physical re-release or a firmware patch. If Sony does decide to give the upgraded console a re-release, it might be just the reason they need to try to compete with the Scorpio and not simply be content with being the underdog.

In the world of consoles and competitive gaming, it’s performance issues which will always end up adding fuel to the whole “PC master race” fire. As long as consoles continue to not perform up to PC standards, the keyboard-toting “elite” will always look down on the rest of us.

The Scorpio appears to be attempting to close the gap between PC gaming and consoles, though in a year there could still be a gap. After all, PCs have a tendency to be outdated almost the instant they hit retail, meaning the Xbox One Scorpio could be a year behind already.

A possible patch may be in the works from Bethesda to allow Skyrim to run at 1080p with HDR until the frame-rate drop can be fixed, though Videogamer states that the game still runs okay. Bethesda might not see a point in such a patch but might take a cue to allow resolution drops to ensure a consistent 30fps.

Plenty of other titles have yet to be play-tested by gamers, who could be far less forgiving when their games actually stutter more on an upgraded console.

As always with the gaming world, it may be worth it to simply wait until the bugs and glitches are taken care of before jumping in.

[Featured Image by Bethesda Softworks]

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