How can I get 60 FPS on console?

Simply put – you cannot. You can, however, ensure you are using a tv with the correct refresh rate for the hard-coded FPS.

The game engine locks frames per second at 30 for consoles and 60 for PC. This is hardcoded into the game engine. Furthermore, the physics engine - Havok - is tied to the framerate. Framerates above the locked-in rate will cause havoc with Havok.

As of this writing, Bethesda has not released a statement whether or not framerates locked to havok for the Xbox One X, Series X/S, or PS5 are the same as the previous gen consoles.

What is Framerate?

Video is put together in a series of frames and the speed at which those images are showing is the rate. So if the video is captured and played back at 30 frames per second, then 30 distinct still images are shown each second.

This rate determines the viewing experience of the video. Hollywood, for example, uses 24-30 frames per second since this is how we see the world. The faster the action on screen, the more frames are required so the viewing experience is smoother. Anything higher than 30 fps is used for recording video game footage or creating slow-motion videos. Streamers who shoot video game footage record at 60fps because there are a lot of things happening on their screen at once.

Device

The device you use to view your video determines the viewing experience. Not all devices have the screen refresh rate to handle higher framerates and not all devices support higher refresh rates.

Refresh Rates

A refresh rate is not the same thing as a framerate. Refresh rates on televisions are the number of times the TV will refresh the picture.

Xbox One S and X support 120Hz at 1080p and 1440p while Xbox Series X/S supports 120Hz at 4k.

Sixty frames per second at 120Hz is no different than watching 60Hz. However, if you are playing 30 frames per second from a 60Hz television, there will be a slight stutter while playing though most people will not see this stutter. Frames are added alternating at 2-3 frames. A smoother experience would be 120Hz where the same amount of frames are added. You can get that by playing at 1080p on Xbox One S or 1440p on Xbox One X.

Deadlocked Scripts

The papyrus system only has a minimum amount of time to run. Because the framerate is locked to the papyrus engine, increasing the framerate, slows down the timeframe scripts have to run.

Running a load order with a massive amount of scripting and attempting to increase framerate can be harmful to your game.

PC players can check the papyrus logs. Unfortunately, console players have no way of checking to see if their framerate issues are due to overloaded papyrus VM.



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