Next-gen woes: Xbox One ‘Dead Rising 3’ locked at 720p, dips below 30fps

During some hard-hitting independent tests of Dead Rising 3 (DR3), an exclusive title for Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox One, it was sadly discovered that the game regularly dips below 20fps, said Eurogamer. The developers of DR3, Canadian-based Blue Castle, said at E3 that the 720p/30fps decision is about how “it’s more important that the end image looks awesome” and that they’re “really happy with that, with the sheer amount of stuff we have in an open world game locked at 30fps, that’s just brilliant.” Independent tests prove otherwise and in the videos, you’ll see how DR3 routinely drops to below 20fps. Is it down to poorly optimised code, or is it a strategically implemented plan? Let’s find out.

Dipping below 20fps is never acceptable

We saw 18fps at one point…

Right, so you’ve watched the video and the dip is highly evident, especially during explosions and whenever large groups of zombies are present. Blue Castle explains that it has ambitions outside of 60fps and 1080p, such as a fully-realised world without any loading screens, and seamless transitions from outside to inside areas. Accordingly, the zombie count is now also triple that of previous games. But why offer promises like this without the frame rate and resolution to back it up?

This isn’t the first time the Xbox One has seen resolution woes. Earlier this month, it was discovered that Call of Duty: Ghosts would run at 720p. Developers Infinity Ward responded, saying that it was a “non-issue”. So far, we count two high-profile games for the Xbox One incapable of running at 1080p.

Back to business. In the videos above, DR3 is upscaled to 1080p from its 1280×720 resolution, the same trick that COD: Ghosts pulls. That’s not to say that DR3 isn’t a fetching game. Fireworks burst off your modded motorbike, Zombies writhe as hero Nick Ramos burns them down and blood splatters cartoonishly as the walking dead are turned into rotten meat. But, the promise of a “locked” 30fps is never realised as DR3 continuously dips below this threshold. The Xbox One is a highly capable machine, with 8GB RAM, an 8-core CPU and decades of hardware improvements, all squeezed into one black box. So the hiccuping frame rate is more than bothersome, it seems outright lazy.

DR3 then, is simply a woefully optimised game that could have easily reached the 1080p/60fps nirvana if it were not rushed out as a day-one launch title. As Eurogamer points out, it’s still a marked difference from the “shaky” E3 build, but the game still feels as if it is stuck in the past, as DR3 was originally planned to be an Xbox 360 game. Blue Castle explains why the swap was made:

“In terms of building the game, we originally developed it on PC and everything we were doing was breaking the bank on Xbox 360. The number of zombies, the streaming stuff we wanted to do, memory budgets for the number of environments and items and physics and all of that stuff. Our tech team partnered with Microsoft to get early specs and figure out how we were going to get it on new hardware.”

Yet still, frame rates in their teens is never acceptable. The Xbox One will be priced at US$499 and for that amount, gamers want smooth, full HD experiences. Hopefully, the teething problems seen in DR3 will be swiftly resolved as developers continue to understand the intricacies of the Xbox One.