Sony: CPU is the bottleneck for Planetside 2 on PlayStation 4

According to Sony Online Entertainment, the AMD CPU of the PlayStation 4 sometimes causes PlanetSide 2 to struggle with low frame rates. According to the developer, the console version is not much inferior to the PC version in terms of graphics, but the PS4 processor sometimes works as an obstacle.

The developers are satisfied with the graphics capabilities of the PlayStation 4, as described in an interview with Eurogamer. The game would look on the console as if the highest settings are being used on the PC. However, Sony Online Entertainment admits that the game suffers from framerate issues and the publisher claims that the processor is the problem, not the graphics card.

At times when many players can be seen on a screen, the processor has difficulty processing all the data. “All that animation and all the audio that goes with the characters running around, all the projectiles that have to be simulated in the client, all of that puts a strain on the CPU, not the GPU,” said Matt Higby, creative director of Sony Online Entertainment. The optimizations that the developer makes are therefore aimed at, in the words of Higby, ‘to make the CPU run faster so that the game runs at a more consistent frame rate on the PS4’. He points to the option of running the game in 30fps instead of the desired 60fps.

There is a lot of talk about framerate issues on the consoles. Assassin’s Creed Unity was set at 30 frames per second, but in the end that was not always feasible. Ubisoft previously announced that the AMD CPU of the PS4 and the Xbox One was the bottleneck in Assassin’s Creed: Unity. It is now striking that Sony Online Entertainment also admits this for its ‘own’ console.