PS4’s much awaited feature, the ability to put the PS4 in suspend and resume mode is finally made available through firmware update 2.50. The update brings in host of new features and improvements but it goes without saying that the suspend/resume feature is the one that many players have been waiting for since launch of the console.
We have already seen games like Grand Theft Auto V and Bloodborne switching rather quickly from suspended to active state. But having got our own hands on this new update, we decided to test it out ourselves. So how does this new feature performs in terms of switching from suspend state to resume mode? In order to know more, we tested this feature across eight different games including some recent PS4 exclusives and multiplatform games such as The Order: 1886 and Final Fantasy: Type 0 HD.
Testing methodology: We are not calculating the time it takes for the PS4 to go from an active to a suspended state. That time is completely inconsequential. We are however interested in calculating the amount of time it takes for the PS4 to switch from suspended to resume state. So how do we calculate that? During suspended state, the PS4 does not output any signal to your television. So the time taken from the moment we push the PS Button on the DualShock 4 controller to the first frame of the gameplay is the time that the console took to switch over completely from rest to resume state. We understand that you would have appreciated videos instead of direct numbers but our capture card is not able to record the footage when the screen is blank (no signal) and the PS4 does stay in blackout mode for a while even when the user has pushed the PS button.
We tested each title across three different areas in the game and the results are below.
The Order: 1886
First Attempt: 35.06 seconds
Second Attempt: 13.89 seconds
Third Attempt: 15.62 seconds
Final Fantasy Type 0-HD
First Attempt: 36.61 seconds
Second Attempt: 33.14 seconds
Third Attempt: 29.41 seconds
Far Cry 4
First Attempt: 20.29 seconds
Second Attempt: 15.71 seconds
Third Attempt: 13.43 seconds
Middle-Earth – Shadow of Mordor
First Attempt: 15.33 seconds
Second Attempt: 16.02 seconds
Third Attempt: 34.44 seconds
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
First Attempt: 12.74 seconds
Second Attempt: 15.40 seconds
Third Attempt: 11.78 seconds
Battlefield Hardline
First Attempt: 12.50 seconds
Second Attempt: 15.26 seconds
Third Attempt: 14.24 seconds
Killzone Shadowfall
First Attempt: 12.57 seconds
Second Attempt: 40.12 seconds
Third Attempt: 14.94 seconds
inFamous Second Son:
First Attempt: 13.38 seconds
Second Attempt: 12.10 seconds
Third Attempt: 13.87 seconds
As you can clearly see, the results are a mix bag. Some games like Final Fantasy Type 0- HD take in the region of 30 seconds which could be a patience killer for some, whereas games like inFamous Second and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes have times ranging from 12 to 15 seconds. Furthermore, why exactly the console would perform so indifferently for the same game, in this case The Order: 1886 and Shadow of Mordor, is perplexing. Overall, the results are highly inconsistent across each and every title we tested.
We also came across instances where the game would stall while switching from suspend to resume state. In this scenario we had to eject the game out of the PS4. This happened to us on a couple of occasions during Killzone Shadow Fall and Final Fantasy Type 0-HD.
Putting the frustrating loading times aside, there is no doubt that many players will find this feature extremely useful. Sony did a great job by finally launching this feature but there is work to be done here and we are hopeful that the experience will be eventually smoothened out in the future.
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