As for the visuals, Higby said the PS4 version compares "very favourable" with the PC version. The PS4 version, he said, uses the ultra textures, full particle effects, shadows and lighting from the PC version.
"From a graphical fidelity perspective, I think people will be very impressed with what they see on the PS4. That's always one of those things people are sceptical about. I see every time we post an article like this I always get called out: 'haha, it's ******** that he's saying it's going to look as good.' It really does."
The bottleneck is not on the GPU side but on the CPU side, Higby explained. "It's because we're tracking and updating so many different players moving on your screen and moving around at once. All that animation and all the audio that's associated with all those characters running around, all of their projectiles being simulated in their client, all those things end up hitting the CPU, not the GPU.
"So, generally when your frame-rates are low, it's a CPU problem, not a GPU problem. And that's where we're optimising right now, to get our CPU running faster so the game is running at a more consistent frame-rate on the PS4."
Higby said SOE is "running for 1080p" resolution on PS4, and, "we're still trying to shoot for 60fps". But as far as the frame-rate goes, this may change.
"We're trying to get a solid frame-rate," he said. "So if we go to 30 it'll be because we want to maintain a completely solid 30fps. But that's the optimisation we're working on right now. And we're still grinding on it.
"Generally speaking the client is running at well over 60fps. In a really big fight it bets bogged down. That's the bottleneck we're chasing down."
