Why the PS4 Pro won’t run Destiny 2 at 60FPS

 The console, the PS4 Pro is super powerful, but it couldn’t run our game at 60. Our game’s this rich physics simulation where collision of players, networking, etc, and like, it wouldn’t run… [there’s] not enough horsepower there.

While the PS4 Pro does have over 2x the GPU performance of a standard PS4,  the Pro only offers a mere 30% boost in CPU clock speeds and a 24% boost in memory bandwidth, which is simply not enough to allow the game to be upgraded from 30FPS to 60FPS. 

The PS4 Pro’s specifications are intended at boosting a game’s resolution and to provide a boost in CPU performance that will help provide more stable framerates in games, which is why 60FPS conversion are rare on the platform and enhanced game resolutions are so common. In simple terms, the PS4 Pro has the GPU performance for 30FPS to 60FPS game conversions but lacks the CPU performance to make it happen.   

 

But there is tonnes of GPU power in the PS4 Pro. That’s why we’re doing 4K, right?
It’s on the CPU side. Destiny’s simulation, like we have more AI, more monsters in an environment with physically simulated vehicles and characters and projectiles, and it’s part of the Destiny magic, like that, like 30 seconds of fun, like coming around a corner and throwing a grenade, popping a guy in the head, and then you add like five, six, seven other players in a public event; that is incredibly intensive for hardware.

 

Looking at things from a different angle, giving players a 60FPS version of Destiny 2 would also be unfair to standard PS4 Pro users, as the players with a higher framerate will be able to react to the game faster and have an advantage in PVP scenarios. No multiplayer developer in their right mind would give their game such a huge imbalance on console platforms. 

 

 

Using the same logic and looking at the specifications of Xbox’s Project Scorpio, we can also see that the Scorpio will also not have enough power to run Destiny at 60FPS. Microsoft’s new console will use a similar AMD Jaguar CPU to the PS4 Pro that runs at identical clock speeds, leaving the CPU once again as a limiting factor for the game. 

It is clear that Bungie has decided to focus on 30FPS gameplay on consoles and to utilise each console’s CPU to the fullest while doing so. This will prevent the PS4 Pro and Scorpio from giving the game huge boost in framerate, though it will allow users to potentially suffer from fewer framerate dips and play the game with higher levels of graphical fidelity. 

PC will be the only platform where gamers will be able to play the game at a 60FPS, simply due to the fact that PC users have access to much more powerful CPUs than our console brethren. Today it is not uncommon to have a CPU that runs at 4GHz or over, which is much higher than the PS4 Pro’s 2.3GHz while also running on more modern CPU architectures that promise more performance per clock than the ageing AMD Jaguar CPU core design.

 

You can join the discussion on Destiny 2’s framerate on PS4 Pro and Project Scorpio on the OC3D Forums.