The PlayStation 5 Pro PSSR upscaler still has a long way to go to match NVIDIA DLSS and even AMD FSR 2 in some scenarios, especially in games with low internal resolution like Alan Wake 2, which don’t make the upscaler a good fit for 4K resolution in its current state.
Digital Foundry recently compared Alan Wake 2 running on PlayStation 5 Pro in Performance Mode using PSSR and on PC using NVIDIA DLSS at the ultra performance setting and the same internal resolution – 864p. Generally, with PSSR, the image doesn’t exactly look like 4K resolution as PSSR fails to bring very small detail to the image, unlike DLSS, which does a much better job at the same internal resolution and the same settings. In addition, the image on PS5 Pro looks very soft and unstable, with visible noise and shimmering even with a static image, which makes it even worse than AMD FSR 2 in this particular scenario.
The PlayStation 5 Pro upscaler also leaves something to be desired compared to both NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2 with effects like SSAO, SSR, and volumetrics, as seen in the fog example where it is clearly shimmering with PSSR. As such, the upscaler in its current state is not only inferior to NVIDIA DLSS, but only manages to trade blows with AMD FSR 2, looking better in motion but not as much in other scenarios. Still, looking at what NVIDIA achieved with DLSS since its release, the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution should definitely become much better in the future, as a developer suggested earlier this week.
Digital Foundry also examined the new Alan Wake 2 ray tracing features created specifically for the PlayStation 5 Pro version, comparing them to the low RT setting in the PC version, which lacks equivalent settings. Unsurprisingly, the console effects are considerably worse than those on PC, so there’s still a long way to go to have a proper ray-traced experience on a console.
The PlayStation 5 Pro is now available worldwide. You can learn more about the system in our review.
