While Sony has yet to make any sort of official announcement, rumors about the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro are coming hot-and-heavy. We recently heard that developers will need to include PS5 Pro compatibility in their games to get certified as soon as this August, and now The Verge has provided some more details about what a game needs to do to earn the “PS5 Pro Enhanced” label.
Sony is reportedly asking devs to create a PS5-Pro-specific graphics mode for their titles going forward, in addition to the usual Quality, Performance, ect. modes most PS5 games already have. While Sony would like devs to focus their attention on 4K resolution (perhaps with the help of their new “PSSR” upscaling tech), 60fps, and improved ray tracing, per The Verge, none of that is strictly required.
Basically, as long as devs deliver a graphics mode that is better than anything available on the base PS5, they can earn the “Enhanced” label. So, for instance, a game cam remain 30fps on PS5 Pro, but boost its fixed or variable framerate and pass as Enhanced. The Verge gives an example of a 30fps game that runs at 1440p on the base PS5 and a full 4K on PS5 Pro, or even a game that runs at a variable 1080p to 1440p on PS5, but between 1280p and 2160p on PS5 Pro passing muster. It can go the other way too – a game could have similar resolution on PS5 and PS5 Pro, but if the devs were to boost the framerate from 30fps to 60fps or even 120fps they’d earn that Enhanced label. Enabling ray tracing where there wasn’t any before without doing much with resolution or framerate would also count. Again, it just has to be better.
What won’t earn a game the PS5 5 Pro Enhanced label is keeping the same basic specs – same target resolution range, same target framerate – with better results. So if a game is 1440p to 4K on the base PS5 and Pro, but runs closer to the high end of that range on Pro, that doesn’t count. If a game targets 60fps on both the base PS5 and Pro, but runs more smoothly on the latter, that doesn’t count.
Developers will actually have to push out a patch to earn the PS5 Pro Enhanced label for older games, but The Verge reports the new hardware will also have a “Boost Mode” that should result in better performance for a large portion of games, even if they’re not updated.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt until Sony actually announces something, but The Verge seems to know what they’re talking about on this subject, and it all sounds fairly plausible.
The PS5 Pro is expected to launch later this year. What do you think? Are you eager to get your hands on the Pro or are the details about how games will be enhanced for the hardware not that exciting?
