Elden Ring falls foul to frame-rate jitters on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC, but there are workarounds

There will be plenty of excited gamers getting their hands on a copy of Elden Ring on its release day of February 25; however, it looks like there might be a bit of a bumpy road ahead for some depending on the platform it is played on and how it is played. Investigative work by the Digital Foundry team over at Eurogamer has resulted in a report that is summed up with the words “a mixed bag” in regard to performance on all platforms.

Starting with the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles, Elden Ring gives gamers the choice between a performance mode for 45-60 FPS and a high-quality mode for 30-60 FPS. The promise of Elden Ring at 60 FPS sounds mouthwatering but Digital Foundry found that not to be the case even with the day one patch installed. The result was no 60 FPS gameplay and juddery graphics output, with the team offering workaround solutions for the consoles.

With the Xbox Series X, a display with variable refresh rate (VRR) support helps smooth out the stuttering, and this is also apparently the best option for Xbox Series S owners too. As for the PS5, the offered solution is to get the PlayStation 4 version of Elden Ring if high performance is more important than visuals. As stated in the report, running the PS4 version of the game on the PS5 should result in “consistent” 60 FPS.

Unfortunately, it’s bad news for PC gamers looking forward to some serious hacking and slashing on their freshly purchased adventure title. Stutters lasting 250 ms have been recorded when new content was displayed and frame-rate drops seem to be common and at times jarring (“from a steady 60 into the 40s”). Utilizing Nvidia’s G-Sync or AMD’s FreeSync VRR technologies can help as long as a compatible monitor is available.

Buy Elden Ring for the PlayStation 4 on Amazon