[Music] we've seen some poorly optimized unreligious games in the last few years especially on Console but Arc survival ascended a ui5 remake of 2015's Arc survival evolved might just be the worst to date the good stuff first though in summary Arc survival ascended is a Roundup remake of survival evolved a game that's originally used onr engine 4 in this transition from ui4 to ui5 developer Studio wildcard chooses to tap into as many new features as many Cutting Edge rendering techniques in unreel 5 as possible and here it is it's on Xbox game pass for series X and S owners with a release on PS5 and PC 2 while last gen consoles miss out it's a true Next Generation take on the ark survival Concept in this sense and on the surface there's no denying the game's visual high points the layout of the default Island map is intact from the original but in comparing both games together the difference is pretty vast most notable is the fact that we have UI 5's nanite deployed to Chisel out more fine geometric detail across great range there are more rocks lining the shores and more foliage detail across the landscape it's Fuller dense more richly detailed while plant life is now fully interactive to player movement next along Unreal Engine 5's Lumen is used in ascended as well a hybrid R tracing technique that simulates Global illumination plus Reflections on water we also now have a volumetric cloud system in play we get upgraded Dynamic water improved physics using ue5 an improved third person camera and much more all combined it's a very feature Rich reimagining of the original game that at times looks [Music] spectacular for context I'm using the PC version here to show Arc survival evolved and ascended at maximum settings it's also worth noting that my RTX 480 here isn't actually handling 4K at Max settings smoothly no problem of course in survival evolved on left it's a 9-year-old game after all but as for ascended on right at 4K resolution and all settings bumped up to Epic there's simply no chance of 60 FPS I've had to resort to ascended dlss performance mode in this case rendering natively at 1080P and even here frame rates aren't exactly a locked 60 FPS by any means the point being the incredible demands of the game on PC do set the tone somewhat for the situation on Console ascended on PS5 and series X make great use of nanite lumen and volumetric fog they aren't on par with PC's top settings as we'll get to but each console gets a line share of the game's best features that is with a serious price in frame rate performance PS5 and series X each aim for 60 frames per second but fall very short of the target waking up with your newly made character you'll be greeted with a choppy 30 to 50 FPS range of performance and with vsync disabled from the off you also get screen tearing running up and down the display it's quite a first impression before we get into the frame rate testing then a quick look at how these consoles and PC Stack Up in comparison looking at the consoles first in a three-way split we have PS5 and series X targeting 1440p if 1440p sounds too good to be true well that's because it is they each use Dynamic resolution scaling with the lower bound figure coming in at 720p on each or 50% scale given that PS5 and series X are always below their 60 FPS targets though the Practical result is that most of play natively runs at 720p anyway reconstructed to 1440p as for Series S on the far right there the same logic applies the target is 900p in this case on Series S but most of the Native pixel counts come in at 450p much like say Immortals of avum or Lords of the fallen in its 60 FPS performance mode it's simply too much to have all these features and 60 FPS running in tandem once again with Arc survival ascended we see PS5 series X and S leaning quite heavily on these low native resolutions reconstructed as they are to find the GPU Headroom for UI 5's best features looking beyond the resolution drop to 450p series s's settings also differ PS5 and series X are on par overall with most differences in lighting you might notice boiling down to variances in cloud coverage as for Series S though almost every setting is dropped firstly texture quality is lowered resulting in a huge chop to the detailing underfoot the imprints in the sand here are removed leaving us with this Bland soup likee smudge across the shoreline plus lower quality shadows and ambient occlusion swimming ahead we're also missing other key features water ripple physics are dialed back on Series S while Alpha transparencies for splashes are cut out too you'll also notice screen space Reflections SSR are used across the water for Series S whereas PS5 and series X benefit from Lumen to avoid occlusion artifacts around the character in a similar vein lum's impact on global illumination is lessened on Series S In fairness Lumen GI is still enabled on the four terlop console to a small degree but the simulated light bounce the red Hue around rocks you might notice is simply stripped out of the scene on the far right it's almost Invisible by comparison and reveals the benefits a fully featured Lumen actually has on PS5 and series X on the plus side the draw distances for trees and major geometry our a match a crucial Point given the framework of the world must have some common ground for online play then again the overall density of grass and rock detail is pruned back again on Series S with more obvious pop in for these smaller details even more glaring is the fact that certain world physics are disabled on series S2 meaning Foliage for example no longer animates as we move through a jungle [Music] all round then Series S is a heavily cutback rendition of Arc survival ascended adding the PC version into the mix using an R7 5700x machine paired with an RTX 480 is quite Illuminating too Xbox series X and PS5 by extension sit comfortably in the middle in terms of quality settings inevitably series X misses out on PC's top epic preset where the drop in rock and plant density is clear to see as is the hit to texture quality really these textures could stand to be DED up a notch on Console I think still it's great to see some scalability options on PC to truly unleash the best settings if you've the hardware for it and to its credit series X and PS5 do each push a respectable quality preset for Lumen nanite and volumetric fog when it comes to Series S though well the comparisons aren't exactly flattering the many Cuts backs we're seeing are the result of an aggressive push to claw back a playable frame rate and in some cases Series S struggles to even deliver on that [Music] promise let's jump to Performance testing next before we start there's a unique feature in Arc survival ascended on PS5 series X and S a command console similar to what we have on PC that lets you tweak u5 settings connect a keyboard to your console of Choice hits the Tia key and a universe of options open up given the dire state of the game's frame rate on Console by default at least the developer gives you the tools to fix it yourself consider it the DIY approach you're able to change the internal resolution for example by just entering R do setr in the command menu and then your chosen value it's even possible to disable visual features like Lum GI Reflections and volumetric clouds in each case find the command line and enter zero as the value at the end and last there is a catch here in that all of your changes reset every time you reboot the game so it's really not an ideal fix still if nothing else the command console does solve one glaring problem on PS5 series X and S the screen tearing enter r. vsync one and The Tear lines are gone and yes it's possible to even enable able a 30 FPS cap to type t. Max fps30 and we're locked at the 30 FPS line right away the snag being as you might notice is it introduces an unwanted judder from uneven frame pacing with that in mind let's see how each console fares in hitting 60 FPS instead on the game's default settings with vsync enabled and then after that how we might optimize for each console ourselves for better results kicking off we have Series S we've got a 900p Target here of course with 450p as the typical native resolution we start off in the opening Beach area at the 45 FPS Mark though performance often settles at around the 30 to 35 FPS region once we get into more busy dense jungle areas at its worst we even have moments dipping below 30 FPS and oddly enough it's looking up at the volumetric clouds that really hits the console hardest still 30 to 40 FPS is the usual readout which wouldn't be so bad if we had a way to cap at 30 FPS with even frame pacing unfortunately there are more major drops under this as well again I'm using default settings here as intended by the developer though with bsync enabled as the only user tweak in my playthrough I found North Zone one of the island dropping to 13 FPS constantly especially so once night falls and with rainy weather in play this very hard drop is potentially conditional on weather and time of day and appears to fix itself after a console reset still the sub3 FPS drops are something to watch out for but the general trend on Series S is performance is just above the 30 FPS line so how best to fix Series S ourselves well there are two approaches here firstly there's dropping the native resolution until we hit 60 FPS more consistently by entering r. set res and also r. secondary screen percentage you're able to lock to any specific Target you choose all of which gives us a rare opportunity to tweak the resolution on Console where usually it's fixed in place place I've gone for a spread of targets on series s in this case from left to right we have 600p 720p the default 900p and finally 1080p of course the native resolutions for each will typically rest at 50% scale so long as 60 FPS is Out Of Reach hence we have 300p 360p 450p and 540p labels up top the sobering reality is we need to drop Series S to a 600p Target rendering at 300p and slightly above with the DRS allows it to keep 60 FPS in View and even at this figure in practice I still noticed drops under 60 for a bit of fun I also tried pushing the res targets to more ambitious numbers targets like 1080P 1440p and 4K each one of these reconstructing from a 50% value and let's just say it's not a go of series s in any case moving on the second approach to optimizing for 60 FPS is a little more aggressive we're sticking it out at the default 900p Target here 450p native and instead we drop visual settings the default settings are on right in the middle I lose the volumetric clouds a move that claws back a significant 10 FPS and finally to get it over the line to 60 FPS we remove volumetric clouds again again and also series s's basic form of dynamic GI as well in the end the result isn't flattering obviously we're looking at an even more Barren lifeless world than the one handed To Us by default on Series S and at this point with so many features stripped out the benefits of playing Arc survival ascended over the 2015 original are limited overall it's clear that the fundamental World design the complexity of the island Studio wildcard has built just doesn't elegantly to series s in any scenario switching over to Xbox series X at least we're closer to the 60 FPS Mark right away again we have a lower bounds and typical reading of 720p reconstructed to 1440p and starting at this Beach area we have a similar frame rate reading to Series S at around 45 FPS though on average series X often operates at around the 30 to 45 FPS range overall we also inevitably have moments that drop below that notably busy jungle areas taking us into the 30s and high 20s so there's a huge range here this is all stock default settings laid out by Studio wildcard with the exception being the added vsync but either way series X is just nowhere near the target there are some spectacular views across the island especially with u 5's Lumen GI and the heavily detailed sprawls of jungle but when frame rates are blighted by sub3 drops and even traversal hitches it's far from optimal to cut to the chase then here's my optimized series X test this time my resolution targets go from 720p 900p 1080P and then finally the default 1440p with the actual native pixel counts up top and the result 900p will get you over the line here certainly it's a step down from the 1440p target running at 720p native we get out of the box on series X image quality suffers for perspective here's what series X looks like targeting much higher values as well ultimately though none of these resolution targets are viable if you want a smooth experience the second approach of course to hitting 60 FPS is to attack the settings themselves much like Series S test earlier the most effective ways to free up performance is in removing the volumetric clouds and GI no surprises here removing both will get you to 60 FPS but it's quite a visual sacrifice to make finally we have PS5 initial impressions are that PS5 runs at a lower frame rate average overall compared to series X in fact at times it's even 5 to 10 FPS lower though with matching Loom and GI Reflections textures and World detail for example this first spawn point at the beach puts us at 33 FPS on PS5 against the 44 FPS reading on series X really it's not clear why there's a golf in performance just around this Beach area given resolution readings are the same too in taxing jungle areas at least PS5 does do behave similarly to series X though we're getting performance in the 25 to 40 FPS range and with the odd traversal hitching view the result is that PS5 spends more time dwelling around the 30 FPS line where the Xbox equivalent is able to push closer to the mid-40s ultimately it means a bigger uphill struggle to optimize for PS5 ourselves using console commands still I went through the exact same motions as series X the resolution targets go from 720p 900p 1080P and 1440p here each of course scaling from native values at 50% sadly and unlike series X none of these are able to get PS5 to a perfectly stable 60 FPS reading even rendering natively at 360p doesn't quite do the job it hovers at 58 FPS and dropping to resolution figures below that shows diminishing returns simply put it's a struggle to get PS5 to run at 60 FPS by changing resolution alone though at least we get a workable range for vrr if your display supports it for posterity here's what happens with the next class in Target resolutions going up to 4K none of these are viable at 60 FPS on PS5 of course though interestingly picking 4K as a Target 1080p native gets us to a similar 28 FPS reading series X the final test then is the visual settings change I've gone for deeper cutbacks on PS5 this time removing shadows as well on the far left as a kind of extreme last Stitch measure running on PS5 is default 1440p Target losing Shadows GI and volumetric clouds gets you close to 60 FPS but it's still not over the line again it's hard to truly recommend playing this way Arc survival ascended world is stripped back but combined with a resolution drop 60 FPS is just in reach on PS5 this [Music] way it's impossible to call these optimized settings ideal but the state of Arc survival ascended is dire enough to justify Extreme Measures right now what we really need is a push from the developer to optimize the game properly for PS5 series X and S using tools more advanced than what we have the command console only takes us so far its functionality on console is limited and the options we do have will never truly replace focused development at a fundamental level Arc survival ascended does impress in how far it leverages unreel engion 5's features in recreating Arc survival evolved from scratch with Lumen nanite and volumetric fog it's an ambitious effort but when performance runs from 20 to 40 FPS and with heavy screen tearing to boot it's clear that the game is not made with a PS5 series X or s in focus for optimization it simply exists on each platform with varying degrees of cutbacks visually from PC the best I can say of it is that the game does run but if 60 FPS is the goal ascended is a game waiting for new better console Hardware to arrive but that's all for me today if you did find this video useful or insightful in any way feel free to like or subscribe and don't forget to hit H that Bell for instant notifications as any new video lands to get a high quality version of this video and many more check out our Patron at digitalfoundry and to get in touch directly you know where to find me but for me for now thanks for watching [Music]