Resident Evil 4 1.004 Full Analysis Shows PS5 Image Quality Boost, Better XSX Performance

Last week Capcom dropped a new update (ver. 1.004) for the Resident Evil 4 remake that added The Mercenaries mode and offered some visual and performance tweaks. Fans quickly picked up on what appeared to be a boost in image quality for PS5, and a possible decrease for Xbox Series X, but now Digital Foundry has weighed in with a more detailed analysis. Basically, yes, PS5 looks a bit better now and XSX looks a bit worse, but it’s not all bad for Microsoft’s machine as its seen some pretty significant improvements in terms of performance and controls. You can check out Digital Foundry’s full video below if you have around 15 minutes to spare or you can scroll on for our recap of the key points.

According to Digital Foundry, whatever Capcom was using for image reconstruction on PS5 has improved, giving Resident Evil 4 an overall clearer look (although some artifacting is still visible). Chromatic aberration has also seemingly been fixed, so feel free to turn that option on now. Meanwhile, the Xbox Series X version of RE4 now features the same somewhat over-sharpened aliased look as other versions of the game, which DF deems a visual downgrade. Speaking of downgrades, both current-gen versions of RE4 have seemingly dumped screen-space reflections, with the game offering older reflection tech if you choose to turn ray tracing off. Ray tracing itself may have been improved slightly, but it’s largely the same on consoles as it was before.

In terms of performance, Xbox Series X/S has seen a nice boost. Basic Performance Mode now runs at a solid 60fps and Performance Mode with ray tracing now runs around 5 to 10fps better than it did before. Performance improvements on PS5 are less obvious, but then, it ran better to begin with. Sony’s system still seems to have a small edge – the “all-dressed” experience (Resolution Mode with ray tracing and fancy hair strands) runs in the upper 40fps range on PS5 and lower 40fps range on XSX.

Oh, and one more thing, it seems Xbox Series’ control issues, including a very large aiming dead zone, have largely been resolved.

Digital Foundry have really been having a ball picking the RE4 remake to pieces (you can also check out their analysis of the PC version here). The reality is, it’s a mostly very-nice-looking game (my few issues with it are more artistic than technical) that runs well on consoles considering its pushing fairly high framerates, ray tracing, and a lot of detail and effects. That said, it seems like update 1.004 was a nice boost that cleared up a lot of launch hiccups.

Resident Evil 4 can be played now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5. You can check out Wccftech’s review of the game here.