In their latest tech analysis, Digital Foundry took a look at the recently released PlayStation 4 Remote Play for PC and Mac.
After doing a quick comparison of games and showing how to connect for Remote Play, Digital Foundry begins a full comparison at 1:15 of the video, saying that the first thing you might notice is fuzzy image quality. “By operating at just 720p,” they say, “the resulting image is lacking the detail you’re used to when playing on a PlayStation 4 connected directly to your TV at full 1080p. In Dark Souls 3… the detailed texture work and crisp images are reduced to a blurry mush. On a smaller PS Vita screen this might not look half bad, but when you’re running it on a large PC monitor it’s not particularly attractive.”
They add:
Alongside noticeable video artefacts it’s also clear that color accuracy takes a hit when using the streaming feature. Bright colours lose vibrancy while darker hues lack the subtly one would expect. The transition between light and shadow often results in large, purple macro blocks that can spoil the resulting image. In comparison to the direct feed output of the PlayStation 4, the resulting stream is muted and blurry. While we would never expect results to mirror what you get with a direct connection, we have seen significantly higher quality examples of in-home streaming elsewhere.
Moving to frame-rate, they say the full 60fps playback “works reasonably well, but there are some minor skips and stutters here that do rob the experience of some fluidity.” Since their test had all of the devices wired to the same router, they warn that people with a slower connection might not see the same results, while someone with a faster connection might experience zero frame-rate issues.
Near the end of the video at 5:05, Digital Foundry takes a look at the input latency in Street Fighter V, which comes in at six frames (100ms). “Games are not unplayable by any means but you will feel the difference,” they say. “If you play competitive games, such as Street Fighter V, you may struggle to perform at your best under these conditions.”
All in all, Digital Foundry says “Remote Play on the PC is a translation of what was available on PS Vita already, nothing added, nothing taken away,” suggesting that any limitations come from the PS4 hardware itself.
Have you tested PS4 Remote Play on PC yet? What do you think of it?
[Source: Eurogamer]
