Ubisoft has release Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora update 3.2, bringing with it a 40 FPS performance mode for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. A potential downside to the update on PC is the removal of AMD FSR 3 support, while Ubisoft work to fix artifacting issues with FSR 3 Frame Generation.
Generally only seen in PS5 exclusive games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, 40 FPS modes are a great halfway house between 30 FPS quality modes and 60 FPS performance modes. However, using them requires having a TV or monitor that supports 120Hz gaming and/or VRR, to ensure that frames can be delivered at regular intervals.
The benefits to 40 FPS range from increasing the smoothness of a game, to improving the responsiveness through the lowered time between frames from 33ms to 25ms, but does so while being nowhere near as taxing as a 60 FPS or higher frame rate. This in turn allows developers to preserve a lot of fancy graphical effects (such as ray traced shadows or reflections), and keep the underlying resolution high – obviously dynamic resolutions are at play here.
Per Digital Foundry’s analysis of the game at launch, Frontiers of Pandora’s 30 FPS quality mode runs at between 1296p and 1800p, while the 60 FPS performance mode dropped to 864p and 1260p, both then being upscaled using AMD’s FSR 2. The 40 FPS mode should hew closer to the quality mode in a lot of ways. Even Xbox Series S now has a 40 FPS option, when it only had 30 FPS at launch.
PC players get a new option for upscaling with Intel XeSS Super Sampling, but AMD FSR 3 support has been rolled back because of artifacts while using Frame Generation.
Here’s the full Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora update 3.2 patch notes:
PATCH SIZES:
- PS5 – 2.4 GB
- Xbox Series X/S – 3.1 GB
- PC – 3 GB
NOTABLE IMPROVEMENTS:
- [Xbox Series X/S, PS5] Added a 40 FPS mode.
- [PC] Enabled Intel XeSS Super Sampling.
GLOBAL:
- Added Fast Travel option to Research Station Alpha.
- Controller re-mapping no longer resets on game restart.
- Fixed various crashes.
- Fixed a few misspellings.
- Fixed some voice lines overlapping during dialogue.
TECHNICAL:
- [PC] AMD FSR3 has been temporarily rolled back.
- Dev Note: To prevent visual artifacts impacting the interpolation output of FSR3 Frame Generation we’ve decided to roll back to the previously used version of FSR3. Despite this rollback, we’ve decided to keep certain improvements that we introduced with the upgraded version, such as improvements to UI composition when using Frame Generation.
MAIN QUESTS & SIDE-QUESTS:
- [Main Quest – Shadows of the Past] Fixed an issue that would prevent the quest from updating when done in co-op.
ADDITIONAL BUG FIXES:
- [All Platforms] Rescued Resistance human characters no longer appear back in the Resistance HQ with a mask on.
- [All Platforms] Some NPCs no longer become invisible when at the edge of the Player’s vision.
We loved Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora when it launched late last year. In our review, Dom said, “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an astonishing achievement, with exquisite visuals and a remarkable balance between pacifism and action. This is an enthralling alien world that plays host to a unique FPS.”
Source: Ubisoft
