Remedy’s Control occupies a special place in the collective heart of Digital Foundry. Not only is it one of the best games of 2019, the revised Northlight engine is also an absolute showcase of cutting-edge rendering technology, which also happens to include one of the best implementations we’ve seen of hardware-accelerated ray. tracing. . Somehow the developer managed to squeeze the core experience (bar RT) into the hardware of the last generation, but now owners of the next generation of consoles can see Northlight stretch: control on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles is a joy.
The basics of the upgrade are already out there, courtesy of Remedy PR. There is feature parity between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X with Control rendering at native 1440p resolution, with momentary upsampling to 4K. Two modes are available: an experience with a maximum of 30 fps with ray-traced reflections (including transparencies) and a performance mode of 60 fps without RT functions. Meanwhile, the Xbox Series S does not have RT features, which means a performance mode is the default and is rendered natively at 900p, with an output of 1080p. Dynamic resolution scaling is not implemented in this game.
But before we get into the details, I think it’s important to summarize why this is a milestone. From my perspective, Control was a glimpse into the future of rendering technology – and even next-generation gameplay. Even disregarding ray tracing, Control does an awful lot behind the scenes. Take the destruction system, where almost any object can be broken down into its component parts. Then there’s the sheer richness of those objects in a particular scene – a full-scale gun battle with the physics system in full swing is an astonishing spectacle. Then there’s the smooth rendering simulation for the Hiss smoke: when objects or enemies pass through this semi-transparent liquid, there’s visible turbulence – a dazzling dance of color with waves.
Everything you need to know about Control Ultimate Edition, with PlayStation 5 as our focus.
And even without hardware RT, Control still uses some form of ray tracing on all systems: signed distance fields are used to provide coarse, yet accurate reflections to enhance the standard screen space effect. Basically, if no screen space data is available, fallback reflections are generated by some sort of trail in a simplified game scene. All things considered, this is a ton of technology not often seen on last-gen consoles, and it was born on the last-gen systems where PS4 Pro ran at native 1080p, while One X came in at 1440p. Meanwhile, there was a sense that the old Jaguar CPU cores had been pushed to a breaking point – performance in Control improved via patches, but overall consistency was still an issue.
On the next generation of consoles, PS5 delivers 1.8x the pixel density of PS4 Pro and does so at double frame rate or hardware accelerated ray tracing – a specification that matches Series X. There will be a lot of debate about whether to play with RT or run at 60fps, but Control is an action-packed game and requires rather fast input at times, so for sheer playability the performance mode will be hard to beat. Still, all modes benefit from extra shine and quality of life improvements – load times have been drastically improved to the point where PS5 can even stream data slightly faster than a Core i9 10900K paired with a fast 3.5 GB / s NVMe SSD. It’s a day and night improvement compared to the last generation consoles.
We will talk specifically about the performance in another piece. So far we’ve only played PS5 with the Day One patch, but we’ve looked at Xbox series consoles with gold master code. On PlayStation 5, the 60fps mode is mostly solid, with lag that only really manifests itself in the most effects-heavy battles, where the screen is filled with burdensome effects. Meanwhile, with a capped 30fps, the RT mode is consistent, frame-rate correct, and stubbornly sticks to its target for the vast majority of the game with only minor deviations. Xbox series consoles are similar, but what looks like occasional I / O stuttering in the last generation versions (and on PC too) is present. We’ll go into this in more detail in a separate piece with more detailed analysis.
But if 60fps is preferable to play, Control’s 30fps RT mode is dazzling. The RT capability in the new consoles isn’t enough to deliver the PC’s full range of ray tracing features, but you get the best bang for your buck with RT reflections on opaque surfaces – like marble, metals, and anything else. slightly glossy – as well as transparent reflections for glass. I would suggest looking at the video at the top of the page for a more detailed look at the amazing benefits that real-time hardware accelerated ray tracing brings, but essentially we’re talking accuracy, precision and an often transformative visual effect . Simply put, the choice of materials in Control’s environments and objects, not to mention the overall design, fits the technology perfectly. With both night and day enhancements to environmental details, right down to the added intricate detail in the smallest objects, the 30fps RT mode is still a brilliant way to play the game.
My favorite part of the ray-traced reflections on PS5 is how they stabilize the image. In a third-person perspective game, it’s very common for your character model to obscure a relatively large portion of the screen, so screen space reflections no longer work properly – the character simply closes off too much of the visible area, causing major visible errors. SSR effects. With RT reflections in quality mode, this is completely canceled out and the image is much more stable and also more realistic. The 30fps limit may be too much for some to swallow, and I can only hope a lower-resolution 60fps RT mode will hit the mark at some point in the future. The drop to 900p in Series S due to the performance mode is obvious, but it’s a trade I might want to make if I could get the RT reflections back as part of the compromise on the more capable consoles.
All in all, I think Control Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 5 is excellent. Whether you’re getting RT reflections at 30fps, or running the game at 60fps, you’re one step closer to seeing Remedy’s vision at its best – and the latest generation upgrade is profound. The only way to improve it is through the existing PC game running on high-end hardware, preferably with an Nvidia RTX card: you get more ray traced effects, higher precision rasterization settings and one of the best implementations of Nvidia’s DLSS AI upscaling, opening the door to 4K 60fps with all RT effects enabled on RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3070 or better. Lower the resolution and less capable RTX cards can still provide a fantastic experience.
Our original Control PC showcase from 2019. Since then, DLSS 2.0 has radically improved image quality to the point where AI upscaling can surpass native rendering.
The video at the top of this page shows how the next-generation console versions compare more directly to PC, although the new console version is based on a revised version of the Northlight engine with two major differences. The first is in ray tracing implementation, where consoles use checkerboard resolution (for reflections only) instead of native on PC. The other custom setting is for the level of detail, which works differently under the new engine version on PlayStation 5. In practice, I’ve found that this new LOD sort typically produces an effect that is lower than the PC’s lowest setting. It’s worth pointing out that these are pretty minor things in terms of the overall presentation.
Ultimately, Control has made a good transition to the next generation of machines. It’s clearly a big step up from the last generation versions of the game – even on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. The ray tracing effects are beautiful, while playing Control at 60fps takes gameplay to another level . It’s also nice to see that smooth, smooth transformation in the experience that comes on all new machines, even the budget-oriented Xbox Series S. Remedy itself has said it’s just the beginning of their efforts to embrace the next generation of consoles . hardware and that there is a lot more to come in the future – and based on what the team has been able to extract from the latest generation of hardware, the possibilities are dazzling. We will look at gaming performance and comparisons of all next-gen systems in more detail as soon as possible. However, after sampling the fully patched PlayStation 5 version of the game, the idea that this excellent conversion is given away for free with PlayStation Plus may make this one of the best lineups we’ve seen from the service.