A Better Idea of What the Best Console for Elden Ring is Like

The Elden Ring has been available since February 25th, and it is absolutely stunning. While the massive open-world RPG’s aesthetics are impressive, its brutality and challenge are even more so, with many critics stating before the game’s release that Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s best game to date. However, if you haven’t picked up Elden Ring runes for sale yet and are also in the market for a new gaming console, you may be wondering which console is the best fit for the game. 

Morgan categorically states that the game’s optimization on the PC is much more of a distraction – whereas consoles do not experience the same level of stuttering as PCs. Although this may be rectified in future patches, the PlayStation 5 is currently the best platform for playing Elden Ring at the time of writing.

To give you a better idea of what the best console for Elden Ring is like, we decided to break it down into its component parts. Morgan put Elden Ring through its paces on a number of different platforms, and his findings confirmed that the Steam reviews weren’t exaggerating when they said that the game didn’t perform nearly as well as it should on the PC.

While Morgan goes into great detail in his test, the gist of it is that the PS5 has a significant 10 frames per second advantage when traversing the Lands Between, as well as an incredible 11-second advantage in terms of waiting time for fast travel and after dying compared to the Xbox One. Given the fact that players will be required to fast travel and die frequently in Elden Ring, a 7-second waiting time on the PlayStation 5 is greatly preferred over the 17-second waiting time on the Xbox Series S/X. According to Morgan’s testing, Elden Ring can be played at a fixed 4K native resolution on both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X consoles. Unfortunately, the game’s unsteady frame rate, which can drop as low as 20 frames per second, can make the gameplay experience rather unpleasant.

The good news is that the frame rate mode does not significantly degrade the visual quality of the game. Using a low resolution of 2688×1512 as its starting point, the frame rate mode will constantly adjust the resolution while maintaining frame rates between 45 and 60 frames per second on both flagship current-generation consoles.

If you are determined to play PC Elden Ring Runes at 60 frames per second on a consistent basis, the only option is to play the PS4 Pro version on your PS5. The PS4 Pro code will reduce the dynamic 4K resolution from the frame rate mode to checkerboarded 1800p with a lower grass draw distance and poorer image quality compared to the standard PS4 code. This is not a significant enough difference to detract from the overall gameplay experience, but it is noticeable enough that it will take some time for your eyes to get used to it. TLDR: You can play Elden Ring on any console you have, but if you want the best experience, you should get it on the PlayStation 5.

After all, is said and done, Morgan has hit the nail on the head when he says that Elden Ring is so richly detailed, its art design so meticulously realized, that the game’s frame-rate issues are overshadowed by the overall enjoyment of the game.

Unfortunately, obtaining a PlayStation 5 is far more difficult said than done. Sony has not yet found a solution to its supply-chain problems. However, because Elden Ring is such a fantastic game, it’s well worth your time to look into any rumors of a PS5 restock in your area.

Aside from that, we have an advantage in terms of frame rate: the 30fps cap has been removed, allowing us to fully exploit the capabilities of Pro hardware. Even when looking directly up at the sky (which typically has the lowest rendering load), you’ll never get more than 30-50 frames per second, but this is sufficient for most gameplay scenarios. Though not ideal, playing with the graphics turned off is preferable to the poorly implemented 30fps cap that comes with the base PS4.

This brings us to the Xbox One X, which has essentially the same visual setup as the PS4 Pro – with one notable exception: it has a higher resolution. Checkerboard rendering has been replaced with native resolution, with a dynamic range that appears to be between 1512p and 1800p, according to the trailer. As we’ve demonstrated by running the One X code on Series X hardware, this has the potential to achieve a resolution of up to 4K, but given the GPU limitations of the last-gen machine, 1800p is the realistic limit. Additionally, the decision to run at a dynamic range of resolutions, with the lowest resolution being 1512p, often results in One X rendering more pixels per frame than the PS4 Pro’s 1800p through the use of checkerboarding. There is one drawback in that performance is in the lower 30-40 frames per second range, which is typically worse than PS5 in matching areas. It’s also worth noting that One X’s visual settings adjust more aggressively, seemingly in response to the amount of load on the system. The result, as you can see in our comparison above, is that the One X reduces the amount of ambient occlusion on grass and even motion blur in some scenes – whereas the PS4 and PS4 Pro keep these settings fixed regardless of the situation.