Prior to the announcement of the Xbox Series X, Microsoft touted the console's 12 teraflops of performance. In actual testing, however, the teraflops advantage has not translated into an overall performance boost.

In a parallel comparison of "Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition" by DigitalFoundry, technology editor Richard Leadbetter and staff writer John Linneman found that both games performed nearly identically. While running, they found that the PS5 outperformed the Xbox in many cases.

When Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition was running at full 4K resolution and uncapped frame rates, both systems performed equally well, with the Xbox jumping up and outperforming the PlayStation by 20 fps on some occasions. However, in high frame rate mode, where the resolution is reduced and upscaled to 4K, the PlayStation suddenly takes a significant lead, in some cases by 40 fps.

"The dips look really odd to me, because I've never seen anything like it on the Xbox side. And it's probably some kind of API limitation on the Xbox side, suggesting that the GPU is being held back by something," Leadbetter said. 'I don't think it's the CPU. If it's not the CPU or the GPU, then what do we do from there? It's not memory bandwidth. It suggests something at the system level or API level.

In a statement to The Verge, Microsoft confirmed that it is "aware of performance issues in a handful of Xbox Series X|S optimized titles and is actively working with partners to identify and resolve issues to ensure an optimal experience."

"We are working with our partners to ensure an optimal experience.

"As the new console generation begins and partners surface what can be done with the next generation consoles, minor bug fixes are expected as we learn how to best utilize the new platform," Microsoft continued.

Microsoft continued."

The Xbox performs slightly better in performance mode with ray tracing running at 1080p. And in RT Quality mode, which runs at a higher resolution, both models run at about the same frame rate, with a slight advantage of one or two frames on the Xbox side.

"The PlayStation 5 leads the pack in terms of specs. And on paper, Xbox should have a big lead, but something is happening," Leadbetter said. But over the past few months, we've been hearing from developers that when they develop on PlayStation 5, they quickly learn to use it. It's an evolution of what they were already using on PlayStation 4. This is a big win for them; with Xbox, they had to move to a new system. And many people don't like change. It takes time to adapt to it. There may be inefficiencies in the software stack."

PS5 also has slightly faster load times, beating Xbox by one second. Interestingly, according to Leadbetter, the PlayStation should have a 2:1 advantage in memory speed over the Xbox, but still only 1 or 2 seconds in the real world.

The Xbox Series X has a variable refresh rate, a technology that matches the screen frame rate to the game frame rate. This makes gameplay appear smoother and prevents screen tearing and stuttering. At this time, VRR is not supported on the PlayStation, but will be in a future update.

Similar performance gaps have appeared in other cross-platform titles; in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Digital Foundry's analysis found a noticeable performance hiccup on the Xbox, with screen In Dirt 5, the PlayStation can consistently maintain 120 fps at higher textures than the Xbox. said on Twitter that a fix for Xbox will be made in a future patch.

Like "Devil May Cry 5," "Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War" has improved ray tracing performance on the Xbox Series X, but it is delayed in 120fps mode.

According to a behind-the-scenes story by The Verge reporter Tom Warren, much of the PlayStation's performance improvement is due to the time spent on development kits. Sony was able to provide developers with development kits much earlier than Microsoft. This may be because Microsoft held off on distributing development kits before rushing to start production lines to finalize AMD's new RDNA 2 technology. As a result, according to Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, Xbox production started later than PlayStation.

There was little time for developers to learn all of its quirks before Microsoft issued an update to the GDK (Game Developer's Kit). According to Warren, developers feel that Sony has better developer tools overall.

Sony may currently be ahead of Microsoft in some metrics, but that may soon be turned upside down as developers become more familiar with the Xbox's GDK.