Update 9.1 for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is going into testing on the Public Test Servers and brings with it the usual swathe of tweaks, bug fixes and new content to try out. However, it also brings a major change for owners of the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro: you’ll now be able to play at 1080p with a frame cap of 60FPS.
All players and owners of PUBG on console can test this out by downloading the separate PTS client.
For Xbox:
You can search and download the “PUBG – Public Test Server” on the Microsoft Store or the ‘My Games and Apps’ menu.
For PS4:
You can find the “PUBG – Public Test Server” in the ‘Purchased’ section of your Library.
I’m sure that PUBG players that own either of these consoles are thinking one thing: “FINALLY!” PUBG has always tried to maintain a level playing field with a 30FPS cap across all consoles, using the added power of the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro to push higher resolutions – 2160p and 1440p respectively. However, PUBG has never had what could be called good performance, with a lot of hitching and stutter present, even if the frame rate is generally at the 30FPS level.
Update 9.1 adds a new Framerate Priority setting that will let you choose to lower the screen resolution to 1080p and lift the frame cap to 60 FPS. We’ll have to wait on some benchmarks and testing to establish how effective this actually ends up being, though. While clocked higher than the original consoles of the generation, the Jaguar architecture CPU of the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro can still be a limiting factor for frame rates, depending on the demands that a game makes.
However, even if the current consoles can’t manage 1080p60, you can almost be sure that the next-gen consoles can. Both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will be able to leverage their additional power to boost frame rates and stabilise dynamic resolutions of backward compatible games, regardless of whether a game has direct support for the platforms or not. Xbox Series S will not be able to take advantage of this, as it will be running the game in base Xbox One made, though it should manage to steady the ship at 1080p30.
Update 9.1 also adds Paramo, a new and dynamic map location set in South America. It’s a 3×3 map, but has the unique hook that it’s a “dynamic” map. This means that landmarks and terrain can move from one match to another, and the lighting can change to be evocative of the active volcano. Speaking of which, there’s streams of lava that will deal 10 damage per second and will wreck the tyres of any vehicle you drive through it.
Head to the PUBG news blog for more details on the new content coming to PUBG in Update 9.1.
Source: PUBG
