Previously, Digital Foundry specialists Alex Battaglia and John Linneman published technical analysis versions Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for next generation consoles. After the release of Update 1.04, they re-tested it and found a number of interesting changes.
Released Thursday, Ubisoft’s 1.0.4 patch for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the first major update for the game, and a very important one, offering a wide range of gameplay improvements and bug fixes. But, of course, Digital Foundry has paid more attention to the controversial technical issues that arose after the launch of the action movie on the next generation consoles. As we remember, despite its technical superiority on paper, the Xbox Series X loses to the PlayStation 5 in terms of performance in this game, and the Xbox Series S does not support 60 frames per second. Patch 1.0.4 addresses all of these shortcomings and also adds a 4K quality mode at 30fps.
As many have already noticed, the performance situation on the Xbox Series X has improved significantly, but other reports have surfaced, with some players claiming that the PlayStation 5 version is now performing worse than before. Digital Foundry could find only one example of the latter: in the opening cinematic scene from time to time there was a slight drop in frame rate, which was not observed in the first test. In all other cases, play on PlayStation 5 runs at the same frame rate and dynamic resolution as before.
Big changes have been made to the Xbox Series X version of the game, where Ubisoft has made tangible strides in addressing framerate and performance drops by dramatically reducing obtrusive screen tearing. They haven’t completely disappeared, but the changes are certainly significant, and in the strictest of stress tests, the Xbox Series X may now even surpass the PlayStation 5. The fact that Ubisoft has made such tremendous progress in a short time may sound like a technological miracle, or the result of a huge optimization, but the solution is simpler than it sounds.
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All versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla support Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DRS) mode, adjusting the number of pixels displayed for each frame to maintain a constant frame rate, decreasing resolution in heavy scenes and increasing resolution in simpler scenes. At launch, the window of available resolutions on both consoles ranged from 1440p at low to 1728p at high – that is, between 67 and 80% of full 4K resolution.
This is still true for the PlayStation 5, but the low end for Series X has dropped to 1188p – 55% or just over a quarter of the pixels of full 4K resolution. It’s worth noting that the Xbox Series X only uses this low resolution when really needed – in most cases the pixel count is significantly higher.
However, it was by expanding the DRS window that the Ubisoft developers managed to achieve their goals, and this is a good decision: instant resolution reduction is a good compromise compared to much more noticeable screen tears. It’s weird that the same optimization hasn’t been introduced on the PlayStation 5. As a result, the PS5 usually plays Valhalla at a higher resolution, and the Xbox Series X generally smoother.
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Patch 1.0.4 also introduces a 4K quality mode for both systems. The 60fps frame rate for the PS5 and Series X changes to 30fps, but the game always produces fair 4K. However, experts do not exclude the presence of dynamic scaling of resolution here, too – for especially difficult situations.
Finally, Digital Foundry talked about the impact of the update on the Xbox Series S version of Valhalla – Patch 1.04, which adds a performance mode at 60fps. Of course, this is not given free of charge. Valhalla was originally run on Xbox Series S in dynamic resolution mode with an average of around 1296p at 30 fps with some graphics simplifications compared to PS5 or Series X. Now, in performance mode, the resolution drops to about 800p on average, and the minimum is at all 720p. Even so, Series S gameplay is inferior in fluidity to Series X and occasionally shows screen tearing.
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As such, the update is welcome for the Xbox Series X and S consoles – although the innovation was achieved through trade-offs, the payoff is well worth it. On the PS5, overall, things are still pretty good. It will be interesting to see what further optimizations Ubisoft will make.
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