Oblivion Remastered’s console performance leaves much to be desired
In a really interesting deep dive from the team at Digital Foundry, the team reports that Oblivion Remastered’s performance seems to decrease gradually the longer you play, potentially due to a memory leak. The performance issues are prevalent on console, affecting the Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PS5 Pro versions of the game.The team reports that their tests reveal that both console platforms suffer from significant traversal hitching issues when exploring the game’s open world, sub-60fps frame rates and performance that degrades over time, and crash issues.
According to Digital Foundry, “60fps performance degrades with continuous play time on PS5 and Xbox. For example, a completely fresh boot of the game — that is, closing the software, re-opening it, and loading a save for the first time — gives you an often significantly higher frame-rate when compared to a playthrough that’s been running for 15 minutes or more. Travelling between areas, or cycling through multiple save states, is an easy way to overload the engine and tank performance.”
Looking at Xbox Series X|S specifically, Digital Foundry suggests that the hotfix Virtuos rolled out last month to help Oblivion Remastered’s 60fps Performance Mode, doesn’t actually seem to have been much of a benefit.
“Ultimately, the issue of poor frame rates remains with or without the latest hotfix update — on PS5 or Series X — and the continuous hours on the clock is the main factor in how the game performs,” DF writes. “Supporting the theory that this is a memory management issue — a memory leak, perhaps — is that all consoles crash after a while.
“After booting the exact same sequence of save points in a row, PS5 and PS5 Pro always freeze at a matching point, taking you to the console front-end. Xbox presents the same issue loading a save, where it bluntly ends the process and takes us to the Xbox menu. Tellingly, re-loading the ‘problem’ save point suddenly works after a fresh boot-up. In summary, crashes may not affect everybody, but this does suggest that time and engagement with the game increases the likelihood of it happening.”
Interestingly, Digital Foundry also says there doesn’t seem to be a clear winner as to which platform runs the game better (even PS5 Pro). “Each has equally sizeable stutters at the exact same points in the world, spiking the frame-time to 100ms or higher,” the team says.
It seems to be a similar situation for the remaster’s general frame rates, as “taking long galloping routes towards the citadel” on any platform, with each console having a moment in the lead at some point. With that said, PS5 reportedly has an average frame rate of 50% across the “breadth of the run,” while the Xbox Series X|S and PS5 Pro average at around 55fps.
It’s certainly an interesting look at the remaster. I’ve said countless times over the last couple of weeks that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my time with Oblivion Remastered. Much of what I loved from the original game is still present, quirks and all, but I have had the displeasure of experiencing a myriad of crashes and endless load screens in the Xbox RPG.
What are your thoughts? Have you been enjoying Oblivion Remastered despite its performance woes? Drop a comment below and let us know!
