Console Dev Update

Hello Survivors,

It’s time for another console dev update, and that means we’ll be touching on some hot topics and issues within the community, as well as providing status updates on features currently in development. Let’s drop in.

Crashing

After Update 8.1, we have been seeing an increase in game crashes. After investigation we found that the main reason for this is due to the increase in memory use.

While we were able to patch some of the issues causing crashes through the hotfix that was deployed two weeks ago, we’re now focused on seeing where we can cut memory use overall. We have implemented quite a few memory-saving solutions into Update 8.2, including optimizing existing content such as emotes as well as preemptively removing PC code that would have otherwise used up a substantial amount of memory.

Our engineers are sifting through tons of code constantly so that we can find areas where we can save memory. For example, for the next update we are looking to remove some unnecessary UI elements that are hogging good amounts of memory for no reason.

Performance

We’ve seen your reports about experiencing low framerates on the map Vikendi. For the time being, we have reduced the frequency of this map being selected.

For the long term, we are working on optimizing lower performing maps to ensure a stable framerate on all maps. Additionally, for building loading issues, Update 8.2 brought changes to the priority in which we load in assets. We’ll be monitoring to see if this positively impacts performance and stability, so please let us know your feedback.

Graphics Settings

Framerate Priority mode, which will unlock the framerate cap for Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro, is now undergoing quality assurance tests. As we mentioned in the last Dev Update, our target release date for this change is October 2020, and that hasn’t changed so far. (Fingers crossed!)

Regarding graphics settings, we’ve been seeing requests after Update 8.1 for the option to turn dynamic resolution off. While this is something we had mentioned in previous patch notes a while ago, we likely will not be able to implement this any time soon as dynamic resolution is currently very crucial in maintaining a certain level of performance.

In the future, once Framerate Priority has been released, we may be able to revisit this to offer to Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro players, as they will be gaining some frames once they start using the new Framerate Priority option.

Providing an on/off option for dynamic resolution will be heavily dependent on how the testing goes for the new Framerate Priority mode. If the new Framerate Priority earns us enough frames, we would be less reliant on dynamic resolution for higher-end console devices, which means we can provide this option.

We’ll continue to update you on any progress that’s made.

Network Latency

In mid-August, we received reports that ping was at nearly unplayable levels – for both consoles and PC.

We use multiple server hosting services, and each of them have their pros and cons. Simply speaking, each of these services are connected to ISPs differently from one another. This means that for certain regions around the world, a certain service might serve you better than another service because of how it’s connected to ISPs.

PUBG switches between these services dynamically, and we found that some of our servers in North America did not have an optimal ISP network, which caused the high pings. To mitigate this, we’ve switched over the service in problematic regions to another service, and based on our data, the issue seems to have been solved.

Network issues can pop up any time, so please continue to report if you experience them.

Open Development

This month, for the first time on consoles, we ran an Open Development program where we asked our players to test out an upcoming feature so that we could get early player feedback, which in turn could result in better, more enjoyable content/features.

The first Open Development test was for Custom Key Binding, and we received many more applications than we ever expected, which of course made us really happy!

Thanks to our courageous group of testers who went on live servers with experimental builds, we were able to get tons of great feedback. Our game designers have already incorporated your feedback into the upcoming feature and hopefully Custom Key Binding looks good to all of you when it finally releases!

One note of apology to our PlayStation players who weren’t able to participate in this round of testing. We tried very hard to get this working, but due to technical difficulties, we sadly weren’t in any position to deploy our builds out to our PS4 testers. We’ll be sure to iron out these issues for future Open Dev tests.

Thanks for reading this month’s console dev update, and we hope you enjoy mowing down enemies with that sweet MG3!

See you on the Battlegrounds,

Joon H. Choi, Console Lead Project Manager