Digital Foundry: The Division 2 Nextgen update is impressive, but PS5 has issues
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 update is fairly straightforward to describe, and the results should be expected: instead of the 30fps cap, the new consoles run the game at 60fps with minor changes to the rest. According to the Eurogamer digital laboratory tests, this is exactly what the owners of the Xbox Series X received. Still, the PS5 assembly lacks significant graphical effects that were not only on the Xbox consoles but also on the PS4 Pro.
Yes, the game now runs at 60 fps, making it much smoother and more realistic. There are also improvements in terms of loading, and the Xbox Series S and X are capable of offering better texture filtering. In terms of resolution, Division 2 uses an excellent temporal reconstruction method, so the actual pixel count is difficult to calculate. According to Eurogamer estimates, the dynamic answer is present in all systems, and the parameter itself ranges from 900p – 1080p on Xbox Series S and 1800p – 2160p on Series X. On Sony PlayStation 5, the range is much more comprehensive – from about 1080p in the most difficult scenes to 1890p.
The graphics on the Xbox Series X and S consoles are close to those on the Xbox One X, but the SSD makes resource loading much more efficient so that annoying textures or objects appear when moving quickly to a minimum. But with the PlayStation 5, the situation is more complicated. It could be SDK or porting errors, but the game doesn’t look as it should. Journalists noted a drop in visual quality compared to the PS4 Pro.
The most dramatic deterioration is the complete lack of volumetric lighting and atmospheric rendering: the fog effect emanating from the lamps, for which the Snowdrop engine is famous, has been removed on the PS5. There is no haze. The interiors have also lost their volumetric lighting. Screen space reflections are also absent and replaced by simple cube maps. The PS5 is now running at 60fps, but players lose much of the atmosphere, so it’s hard to believe this isn’t the developers’ fault. The game also behaves mysteriously about the download speed: on the new Xbox compared to the Xbox One X, this figure has increased sharply, but the PS5 lags behind the competing new generation consoles by a few seconds when downloading the same content. Moreover, the PS5 is technically faster in SSD speed, or at least no worse than the Xbox Series X.
On all systems, the frame rate seldom drops below 60fps, although the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles sometimes skip some frames in difficult scenes. But overall performance is excellent on all systems. Hopefully, Ubisoft fixes issues with the PS5 version.
