Call of Duty: Ghosts suffering framerate issues on Xbox One since latest update

The Xbox One version of Call of Duty: Ghosts no longer sports the buttery-smooth framerate that the franchise is known for.

On Jan. 28, Ghosts developer Infinity Ward updated the Xbox One version of its hit military shooter. The patch added some new multiplayer game types, fixed some minor issues, and — apparently — caused the game to no longer maintain 60 frames per second.

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Every second, a game redraws its onscreen action multiple times; this is known as refreshing the screen. Many games do this 30 to 60 times every second, which would mean a game is producing 30 to 60 frames per second. The Call of Duty franchise has long impressed gamers with the technically impressive feat of always maintaining 60 frames per second. Any deviation from that refresh rate would cause Call of Duty to look choppy and unnatural.

And that’s exactly what is happening in Ghosts.

In its popular multiplayer mode, many of the maps see the game’s famous 60 frames per second drop down into the mid-30s. This is something that seemed to start after the patch went live. We’ve reached out to Infinity Ward and publisher Activision to ask if they were aware of the problem and when fans can expect a fix. The two companies said they are looking into the problem.

In the meantime, the video wizards at DigitalFoundry (a website that looks into the performance of games) produced the following video that shows just how poorly the frame-rate performs on Xbox One:

Call of Duty: Ghosts debuted on Xbox One on Nov. 22, which is when the console went on sale. The shooter was the system’s best-selling game, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. At that time, Ghosts’ framerate held steady at 60 frames per second in all scenarios.

That likely means that something in the Jan. 28 patch is dragging down the game’s performance. We’re working to get Activision to confirm that.

Take a look at Ghosts in action prior to the update:

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