Making games is really difficult, but when it comes to Rockstar’s remasters of the classic PlayStation 2 Grand Theft Auto titles, you could be forgiven for expecting slick performance on Sony’s supercharged PS5 console. This is, after all, a system that runs releases like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart at a near-locked 60 frames-per-second – even with raytracing enabled.

The results for GTA 3, GTA Vice City, and GTA San Andreas are disappointing, then. The game has two modes: Performance and Fidelity. The latter runs at a higher resolution but restricts the gameplay to around 30 frames-per-second. We use the word “around” because it fluctuates, sometimes jumping as high as 35 frames-per-second and other times dipping below. This is true of all three titles.

But playing a classic PS2 game on modern hardware feels wrong at 30 frames-per-second, so you’re probably going to want to use the Performance option, which targets 60 frames-per-second – and does so badly. Look at this footage of GTA 3 – it endures dips as low as 35 frames-per-second when out and about in Liberty City, which is unforgiveable for a project of this kind:



GTA Vice City holds its target a little better, but plummets when under duress, like during gunfights:



Meanwhile, it’s fair to say that GTA San Andreas is the steadiest of the lot – despite also being the best looking of the trio – but it’s not without its fair share of dips and judders:



All of these have been analysed with the compilation running its day one patch, so this is the optimised version that Rockstar deemed ready for release. We’ll reiterate that we know making games is hard, but when it comes to remastered ports of classic titles, performance is key. This is nowhere near good enough, and we hope the publisher has some prompt patches prepared.

Posted: Nov 14, 2021 5:59 am
Related Forum: Grand Theft Auto Forum

Source: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/11/gta-trilogys-ps5-framerate-analysed-and-it-aint-pretty