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We had some interesting feedback to our initial article on The Division beta, which concluded earlier today. Pixel-counts pegged the Xbox One version of the game on par with the PS4 offering at full 1080p, yet many noted that image quality seemed noticeably softer in motion, even when both versions were set to the same image sharpness setting. Ubisoft's decision to extend the beta for a further 24 hours gave us a chance to revisit the game and after further analysis, what seems clear is that a dynamic resolution scaler is in effect on the Microsoft platform.The idea here is straightforward: to maintain 30fps, the game lowers resolution in complex areas - typically on New York's ruined streets. This manifests as text appearing blurrier on distant signs, along with sub-pixel break-up on fine detail. Tellingly, this doesn't appear to be an issue at all on PlayStation 4 or PC versions of the game in matching shots.
Using the PC version as a comparison point, we explored various options: first of all, we cycled through all SMAA anti-aliasing variants available, including stabilisation and super-sampling temporal AA options. We even disabled SMAA completely, and used the Nvidia control panel to force FXAA, thinking that perhaps Ubisoft Massive applied a less expensive anti-aliasing technique to help maintain the Xbox One's creditable performance level.
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