Dragon’s Dogma Performance Analysis

Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry has penned a performance and image quality analysis of Dragon’s Dogma that compares the two versions of the title, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. They ultimately conclude that the Xbox 360’s version performs better, although the differences are not extremely pronounced:

Capcom has managed to put together a competent enough cross-platform conversion which hits the right notes in most areas, but struggles to reach complete parity, and suffers from some severe performance issues on both systems. Image quality is effectively identical, bar the obvious gamma differences and better texture filtering on the Xbox 360, and in terms of the overall graphical make-up of the game there is very little to separate the two at all – none of the subtle differences have any impact on the look of the game or will affect your enjoyment at all.

However, where things start to diverge is with regards to performance. Across a general run of play, there’s a feeling that the 360 version is the more consistent of the two where frame-rate and response are concerned. The regular bouts of screen-tearing on the 360 can be unsightly, with quick camera pans creating particularly ugly-looking scenes. However, the level of smoothness on offer makes for a more consistent experience across the board, and definitely helps gameplay during combat sequences.

Neither game acquits itself well here, but on balance we feel that the 360 game is the better performer, and from a technological perspective becomes our first choice when it comes down to the crucial purchasing decision. However, for those particularly sensitive to screen-tear, the PS3 version is the one to get – the experience is still deep and rewarding, and the game is still highly playable, but the lower frame-rate is more noticeable and is sometimes felt in the controls.

Since I’m playing the PlayStation 3 version for review purposes, I guess I can only add that, while the performance problems are not a deal breaker, the game could really benefit from a PC version with higher resolution and a smooth framerate.