Is PS5 better than RTX 4090? Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart PC optimization leaves gamers scratching their heads

Gamers have been complaining on Twitter about the optimization of the PC port of Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. While the game runs pretty well on the PS5, PC players have noticed it faltering on rigs with some of the best graphics cards, like the RTX 4090. Gamers have reported less than 60 FPS at 4K on this GPU when playing the game, despite the card itself being able to run modern AAA titles maximum settings. Some have even gone as far as to say that the PlayStation hardware is better than the 4090, not in terms of horsepower, but optimization and support.

PlayStation ports have a history of not laying too well on PC. Other than some notable exceptions, like Spider-Man and Days Gone, almost every game has been plagued with optimization issues on PC. A prime example is The Last of Us Part 1, which launched on PC earlier this year.

However, other than just framerates, PC gamers are also reporting differences in loading times and overall smoothness of the latest Ratchet and Clank title.

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How does Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart compare on PC and PS5?

Like any other game released on the PS5, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart comes with two different performance modes: Quality (which delivers 4K 30 FPS in the game) and Performance (which delivers 1440p 60 FPS). Both these modes use ray tracing on the console and rely on dynamic resolution.

On PC, things aren't as straightforward. Overall performance depends on a lot of factors, including the CPU, GPU, memory, storage drive, monitor, and others. Interestingly, all of these vary from computer to computer, making the optimization process more challenging than on the PS5.

However, this is no excuse for Ratchet and Clank to play poorly on the platform - countless games run well on PC regardless of the underlying hardware.

The tweet above shows the framerates for Ratchet and Clank on different graphics cards. For starters, entry-level cards can't reach a playable framerate in the title. There are also some significant anomalies. The RTX 3060 Ti beats the 4060 Ti, and the AMD RX 6900 XT takes the lead over the RTX 3090. This is not in line with the regular trends observed with these GPUs.

These performance issues infuriated the gaming community, and fans of both PC and the PS5 have taken to attacking each other on social media, claiming their platform of choice is better.

In addition to these problems, many gamers have reported poor framerates and smoothness issues at higher resolutions. The 1% and 0.1% low numbers aren't the best in this game. This can be primarily accredited to the complications that are bound to arise when making a port.

For the most part, Ratchet and Clank was initially designed to only be played on the PS5, so the PC port was an afterthought at best. However, now that Sony is focusing on multi-platform development, ports of upcoming games will likely have fewer performance issues. For now, Ratchet and Clank is still playable on PC, and those facing framerate hiccups can simply crank down the settings to get a stable FPS in the game.