We’ve already covered Mass Effect Legendary Edition as it presents on Xbox Series consoles and PlayStation 5, with some very favourable results across the board – but the fact is that it’s actually a project built around the last generation consoles, leveraging ‘back compat plus’ features to improve the showing on the new wave of machines. So how does the game look and run on the consoles it was actually designed to run on? The answer? It’s actually quite dependent on which of the two quality modes you choose.
Yes, it turns out that every console gives you access to presets that allow you to target performance or resolution, but the ways in which each mode presents can vary from console to console and from generation to generation. So much so, in fact, that EA even published a table for all seven available consoles. But in this coverage, the questions we need answers to are actually pretty straightforward: firstly, can quality mode sustain an evenly frame-paced, high resolution 30fps? And secondly, what actually happens to performance in the ‘favour frame-rate’ mode? 60fps was the target for the new wave of consoles, but to what extent can the older consoles compete?
On the face of it, the situation with the base consoles is easy enough to nail down. Both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 target a native 1080p resolution in the quality mode; drops via dynamic resolution scaling are rare on each, though a lower-bounds measurement of 1440x810is occasionally sighted on Xbox One. Both machines cap at 30fps with v-sync enforced, meaning no tearing. The good news? Both put in a good 30fps performance for this quality mode, but there are certain stress points – the Citadel in Mass Effect 1, for example – that can show frame-rates dipping beneath the target. Xbox One hits a nadir of 24fps here most notably. Mass Effect 3’s initial, explosive cutscene can also cause some issues, but overall, the outlook is good and while slightly improved, the base PlayStation 4 offers much the same experience.
