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1438050cookie-checkMass Effect: Andromeda Is 30fps 1080p On PS4, 900p On Xbox One
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2017/01

Mass Effect: Andromeda Is 30fps 1080p On PS4, 900p On Xbox One

Aaryn Flynn, the general manager for BioWare, took to the NeoGaf forums to discuss Mass Effect: Andromeda for the home consoles. The thread was originally about the game appearing on the Nintendo Switch (or rather, not appearing on the Nintendo Switch), and Flynn dropped a bit of a knowledge bomb on the forum-going audience regarding the tech specs for the upcoming sci-fi adventure game.

According to Flynn the PS4 will run Mass Effect: Andromeda at 1080p while the Xbox One will run the game at 900p. Both versions of the game will only run at 30fps, where he states…

“Last I checked, we were like other Frostbite games on PS4 and XBox One – 1080p and 900p respectively. All are at 30 fps. PC has uncapped framerate. I think we’ve even gotten over the 30 fps cap in cutscenes, but I’ll double-check in the next couple of weeks.”

The game will supposedly run at 1800p with “checkerboard rendering” on the PS4 Pro, according to an article on Eurogamer. Essentially the PS4 Pro doesn’t have the actual under-the-hood horsepower to output at native 2160p, which is usually the standard resolution for 4K gaming.

As mentioned in our article about The Last of Us: Remastered running at 1800p on the PS4 Pro while barely being able to hit 60fps, there’s a 2.5 million pixel difference between 1800p and 2160p. You can think of the former as a poor man’s 4K and the latter as the legitimate 4K.

What’s interesting here, however, is that the 1800p for Mass Effect: Andromeda on the PS4 Pro won’t enable them to run the game at 60fps, which is what Naughty Dog targeted for The Last of Us: Remastered on PS4 Pro. Instead the game will suffice at 30fps, a significant step back for console gaming.

I’m not entirely sure why 1080p at 60fps is such a hard thing to achieve these days, but the frame-rate cap on Mass Effect: Andromeda will only be available on the home consoles. As Flynn points out in his quote above, the Glorious PC Master Race will get to play Mass Effect: Andromeda with uncapped frame-rates.

You can look for the game to launch in full on March 21st for home consoles and PC. Some gamers have been petitioning for BioWare to relieve game designer Manveer Heir of his position at the studio over his racist comments, while others have claimed that they simply won’t buy Mass Effect: Andromeda.

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