The Resident Evil 4 remake, available from March 24th, seems to please players. However, after several technical hiccups found in the demo, we were itching to see how the final version of this long-awaited remake would perform on consoles, and today’s analysis from Digital Foundry answers our questions.
Best picture quality on Xbox Series X
The least you can say is that Resident Evil 4 is a real remake that impresses with its plasticity. On Xbox Series X|S and PS5, two graphics modes are available with “unlocked” frame rates capped at 60fps.
The Xbox Series X version runs at 1800p in performance mode and 4K resolution in resolution mode. Although Capcom seems to use image reconstruction, the result is very satisfactory.
For the PS5 version, Digital Foundry mentions a higher resolution in frame rate mode (1944p) and a similar resolution in resolution mode. However, it is specified that on the Sony console, the image looks more “blurred”; hair and vegetation in particular suffer from pronounced aliasing, which has already been done in the demo.
The Xbox Series S offers a 1080p frame rate mode and a 1440p resolution mode. Compared to its bigger sister, Microsoft’s small console offers lower quality textures, but the result is still pleasing to the eye given the machine’s resolution and performance.
Light tracing effects
On Xbox Series X or PS5, Resident Evil 4 Remake offers ray tracing. The option must be activated in the game settings, but the results are quite subtle. Ray tracing only works with reflections and only seems to affect the surface of the water.
The rendering in the game is pretty convincing, but seems quite optional.
On the Xbox Series S, there is no option in the menu to enable ray tracing, but it appears to be enabled by default in resolution mode. However, the quality of the reflections leaves a lot to be desired, with very low resolution as shown in the image above.
The best frame rate on PS5
In terms of performance, the results are generally the same as most of the latest released games. The Xbox Series X offers a relatively stable framerate of 60fps most of the time in performance mode, but Digital Foundry finds the framerate drop to be intrusive. In resolution mode, the frame rate is typically around 40 fps when options such as ray tracing are enabled, with a lot of fluctuation.
The PS5 follows the same pattern, but for the most part with higher frame rates. However, this is not enough to maintain 60 FPS, and the frame rate here too constantly fluctuates in resolution mode.
For its part, the Xbox Series S offers choppy performance in two graphics modes. In general, using a VRR-compatible screen should also help improve tri-carrier gaming, especially on Xbox.
Too high stick deadzone on Xbox
Finally, Digital Foundry notes that Microsoft’s consoles have a control issue. It is the dead zone of the sticks that is indicated, with a lower response to the screen than on the Sony set-top box.
In general, you have to control the joystick for almost 40% of its travel before you start to see camera movement in the game, which is obviously not ideal for aiming.
We already watched in the demo and hoped that the dead zone issue on Xbox would be resolved in the final game, but that is not the case. Now we can hope that Capcom will release an update that will fix this rather annoying problem in the game of this genre.
You can find the full Digital Foundry analysis below. The problems in the demo are unresolved, which is rather unfortunate for a game of this caliber. Also remember that Resident Evil 4 Remake is already available on Xbox Series X | S, PS5, PC and PS4.
