Black Ops Gets “Digital Foundry” Face Off

Eurogamer regular Digital Foundry has set the cat amongst the pigeons with his detailed, in-depth look at both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.  In the report, everything is analysed in the closest of details, from the framerate to the resolution, and there’s some surprising results, even though the Xbox 360 version comes out on top as the clear winner.

First off, both versions are “sub-HD”, with the developers opting to reduce the resolution to ensure the framerate stays as high as possible.  The Xbox 360 version comes in at 1040 x 608 with 2x MSAA whilst the PS3 version offers a 960 x 544 resolution, with the same anti-aliasing.  The former, according to the report, has “a slightly cleaner look to it” but both versions look just fine.

Digital Foundry then looks at the framerate (during one of the game’s cutscenes) – on the Xbox 360 the framerate’s locked at 60fps, but on the PS3 it drops as low as 40fps during one particular section – there’s also some screen tearing on the PS3 version not present on the Microsoft platform, even though it’s largely invisible.  The same sort of framerate divide appears to occur during the game itself, too.

Page 2 of the report discusses the texture differences (there’s some lower resolution textures on the PS3 version) and the shadow detail, which, again, is much better on the 360.  There’s some debate on the 3D merits, too, which suggests that the developers opted to halve the frame-rate on both consoles to get the dual-outputs down the cables.  “The 3D version of Black Ops on PS3 really isn’t very satisfying at all,” it says.

We’ll have our own review of the game very soon, where hopefully we’ll set the record straight on the actual game.  In the meantime, if you’re considering which version to get, it’s probably well worth reading the full report and making your own mind up.