Typically the higher the performance, the lesser the quality. Same can be said in reverse. To make a scene look really good takes a lot of processing power and that lowers framerate. Alternatively, to get to the advertised 120hz, lowering the picture quality frees up that processing power and will raise the fps. Consoles only have so much processing power so they can’t consistently do 4k 120hz. Some less demanding games could probably do both but newer titles can’t.
Nickthedick3 t1_j6kbf4z wrote
Reply to Eli5: if the Xbox series X and PS5 can both do 4K120fps, why do we still see performance and quality modes instead of the high resolution and framerate? by Fishmeister8902
Typically the higher the performance, the lesser the quality. Same can be said in reverse. To make a scene look really good takes a lot of processing power and that lowers framerate. Alternatively, to get to the advertised 120hz, lowering the picture quality frees up that processing power and will raise the fps. Consoles only have so much processing power so they can’t consistently do 4k 120hz. Some less demanding games could probably do both but newer titles can’t.