Digital Foundry checked out the upcoming PS5 Pro console at a recent preview event and came back with an hour-long video to discuss their first impressions (with some excerpts of game developer interviews sprinkled in) and show off some new footage from various games.
F1 24: Besides DDGI (Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination), Codemasters has added three ray-traced effects for ambient occlusion, transparency, and opaque reflections. Moreover, anisotropic filtering has improved. According to DF’s Oliver Mackenzie, these additions translate almost into a generational leap in visuals in some instances. However, image stability in this RT mode isn’t as stable as in the base PS5 Quality mode, probably due to a combination of PSSR and the noise caused by the ray-traced effects. PSSR will be added to other modes in the future.
Gran Turismo 7: Polyphony Digital’s latest game offers two PS5 Pro modes. One, as mentioned in the other report posted earlier today, adds real-time ray-traced reflections during races. However, GT7 has a more limited ray tracing implementation than F1 24, with off-track elements and even some on-track elements not being factored in the reflections. Image quality and stability also suffer a bit in this RT mode compared to the base PS5. For those players who aren’t interested in the ray-traced reflections, there is an image quality priority mode that uses PSSR and looks very clean in comparison.
Horizon Forbidden West: This one is interesting. Guerrilla Games confirmed that it uses a new anti-aliasing reconstruction technique originally developed for future games but was then ported back to the second installment in the Horizon series. It’s not PSSR or checkerboard, but Digital Foundry was very impressed as it looked way more detailed and stable than the previous solution included with the game. There will be a Quality mode that renders more often at 4K or near-4K resolution, but the developers really believe PS5 Pro players should rather use the new Performance mode since it looks extremely good already.
Hogwarts Legacy: The Fidelity RT mode will offer vastly improved ray-traced shadows and reflections on PS5 Pro compared to the base PS5, with reflections using doubled resolution. The developers credited this to the console’s BVH management, which is much faster than the PlayStation 5’s and allows them to ‘collect’ objects from much further out. Avalanche Software also confirmed to have switched to PSSR for all modes (they were previously using Unreal Engine 4’s TAA).
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: According to Digital Foundry, in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, PSSR in the Performance Pro mode looks ‘different’ compared to the Quality mode from the PS5 version, resolving some details better and others not as well. Of course, that’s while running at twice the frame rate. Insomniac said they plan to further improve the Quality Pro mode, hinting at potentially adding some ray tracing techniques that would take advantage of the PS5 Pro’s much-improved ray tracing capabilities. They also confirmed to have removed a sharpening filter that was previously applied to their anti-aliasing reconstruction technique, since it is not needed with PSSR anymore. As for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, image quality and PSSR hold better than Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, possibly due to the less intensive load.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered: PSSR once again appears to resolve a lot more details than the blurry TAA used in the base PS5. However, it also has worse image stability, and the depth of field isn’t working correctly in some cases.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: In many ways, this is the poster child for the PS5 Pro since the PlayStation 5 console delivered profoundly disappointing image quality in the Performance mode. The details are much higher on the PlayStation 5 Pro. However, DF again noted some stability issues, and the Level of Detail (LOD) drawbacks haven’t been improved.
The Crew Motorfest: This is another game where the Performance mode sees a big detail improvement thanks to PSSR. The developers are also porting some of the higher settings from the PS5’s Quality mode.
Demon’s Souls: While still an incredible-looking game despite being a PS5 launch title, the PS5 Pro makes it even better by allowing a higher resolution and introducing contact shadows.
Dragon’s Dogma 2: PSSR looks a lot better than the old checkerboard solution, but it does seem to have some issues in this game with RTGI. Overall, though, the game ran much faster on PS5 Pro, reaching around 50 frames per second in the notoriously troublesome city scenarios.
To round up the preview, Digital Foundry said that multiple developers hinted at PSSR having improved over time, and they expect the same will occur in the future. It makes sense, being a machine learning technique. As for the elephant in the room (whether the PS5 Pro is worth the $699 price Sony is asking), they said its improvements will matter more to users interested in playing games at 60 or higher frames per second.
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