Can PS5 Pro transform gaming quality?
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Ghost Busting Power
With the PS5 Pro grabbing all the headlines, be they positive or negative, the lynch pin of the big Three pillars the console offers is within that console first. Hardware Accelerated Machine Learning image reconstruction solution, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution. Even though we have only seen a tiny, and in my opinion, odd choice of games shown off. We can glean some important nuggets of information from within the nucleus of these early showings. What is the console and PSSR’s potential? Is this the secret sauce of the console generation?
With a 3rd party focused state of play certainly due later this month (Updated article today following more showing at the State of Play event including Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered, Ghost of Yotei among more), we will have more to discuss soon. In fact, I assume around the 26th will be the day we get that extended reveal of games. This forced Sony’s hand to keep their cards close to their chest, not wanting to steal 3rd parties thunder by showing off new and current games, that will start to take advantage of the new hardware. Thus, they had to pick largely from their own stock, and the slim pickings meant we got, I believe, the best of a hurried collection of updates – more on that at the end of the video. Let’s start with the most impressive and longest samples shown from the hi-res footage released.
Horizon: Forbidden West
The Guerrilla Games sequel was a standout, both on PS5 and PS4, in getting the most out of a closed system. This was evident in my reviews when it hit PC and remains a gorgeous but demanding game. On PS5 it gained some significant increases on image quality(IQ) specifically in the performance mode, with big changes in their Checkerboard rendering in that mode (Fidelity mode is native 4K). They improved a big problem in modern TAA solutions, and abundant in this game more than most, alpha and foliage. So we are starting from a very high quality image even on base PS5, an important aspect here. With Horizon:Forbidden West I believe, at least from the limited footage, is NOT using PSSR at all. The effort and potential rabbit hole you will go down, swapping out that hand tailored solution for PSSR would be far too large and likely counter productive.
So, here I believe we are seeing the direct results of the pure GPU uplift the PS5 Pro offers, taking a PS5 4K/30fps mode that, with Dynamic Resolution Scaling(DRS), could run around 42fps in the Variable Refresh Rate(VRR) mode up to 60+fps. For the sake of argument we will say 40fps is now 60fps or frame times have reduced from 25ms to 16ms using nothing but the GPU hike. Meaning the team have used that approximate 45% increase in pure rasterised GPU performance gain here. I would wager that figure came from Guerrilla directly and the work they have done here. As what we appear to be looking at, is the same 4K fidelity mode now running at 60fps versus the 30fps of before, but the 5% delta you say? Well DRS may be slightly more aggressive, it often ran between 1620 and 1800p on the PS5’s Performance mode. So, it may have a slightly lower bounds, say 1728p, which would fill that gap with a 7% reduction as needed. I also noted the Depth of Field is slightly lower resolution on the PS5 Pro here over PS5 and, again, this may be a lower resolution filter pass OR a reduction on a single axis, likely width, as it can become bandwidth bound. All that aside, we are getting a close One to One alignment with the PS5 fidelity mode at 60fps which is impressive. This reflects the best case scenario for games that run 4k/30 on the PS5, could now be ramped up to 4k/60 with some minor tweaks.
The reason I say this is an excellent result, is this game is VERY demanding on all hardware. The PlayStation 5 runs the High settings across the board, compared to PC, in its Fidelity mode. Using my long serving RTX2070 OC model, in the same scenes compared here, at the same settings at 4K DLSS Quality we are often running around 24fps. The PS5 is around 45% faster than the 2070 here, which falls within many of my previous tests on this GPU. As you can see in the comparisons through, even on PC using FSR3 or DLSS at 4K quality mode. The image across all three is practically identical, confirming something I often say, a 4K output target requires a 1080-1200p as a baseline to achieve a close match to a native 4K. Here, Guerrilla Games own temporal image solution is competing with the best the PC space has to offer using the pure GPU grunt of the PS5 Pro and not the new PSSR AI hardware. In my IGN review I demonstrated how DLSS is superior on some aspects and the PS5 solution wins on others, such as Grass and dis-occlusion is better on DLSS. SSR and particles are better on PS5. A great first example of what the extra GPU and bandwidth can offer from a, likely, small tech team within the studio which will likely improve on this for newer games and even patches to come. I know Mark Cerny noted improved hair and skin, which I noticed some potential Sub Surface Scattering improvements in the footage they released, but hair looks the same. I believe this, and the increased frame rate, with the same 4K fidelity solution is why Mark mentioned they had used the extra GPU power rather than PSSR, aka better results for far less work. Never throw the baby out with the bath water after all.
Gran Turismo 7
This is another perfect use case for the options developers will have from the new console. Choosing from PSSR, And/or Ray Tracing increases within the far more powerful GPU. With Polyphony being Polyphony, they used the extra horse power to improve the visuals of the cars, and significantly so. With the previous Ray Tracing(RT) mode on PS5 only using RT during the real time replays, photo and scapes modes, here we get full RT during game-play. And compared to the replay mode, which ran at 30fps when RT was enabled, it all runs at 60fps on the PS5 Pro. However, we do see a cost here with a possible DRS solution used now or signs the PSSR reconstruction technique used can present counts ranging from 1170p, 1440 and 1620p and the full 4K during both game-play and real time replays. The technique can leave some stair steps edges on specular highlights, high contrast edges, and such with a subtly softer image over the previous 4K Checkerboard on base PS5. It is most likely using PSSR here, it may not, as the limited footage and edges that can have little AA coverage. As this is a pre-release build of the Machine Learning up sampling technique, which pushes up to 4K, we can expect big improvements to the core model and driver closer to launch and beyond I am sure.
That said, the image is still sharp and stable with a much higher resolve than numbers suggest. The Ray Tracing is excellent though, with big increased in inter reflections on cars and other cars, alongside improved trackside reflections on cars. This helps ground objects on the track far better and is much closer to reality. In the examples here, you can see side by side improvements with the PS5’s RT mode looking less accurate. Reflections seem to be Quarter resolution(1080p), which is often the case even on PC, with half or full usually being hidden in the top spec max options. They work wonders here on the look and accuracy of the game, complementing some of best PBR and HDR in the business. Now offering full RT that reflects highly detailed car models within the BVH data set including all other cars, buildings, trees, roads, shadows and more, this is no half measure. Various surfaces are factored in from highly specular chrome, paint on car bodies, brushed metal and even highly diffuse rubber and leather. It looks like a CAD model at times right down to the difficult semi translucent glass with RT and the Fresnel calculation increasing or decreasing the reflection at the angle of incidence. I often say pixel counts, beyond a point don’t matter, GT7 is a podium challenger for that argument. Offering exceptional RT, smooth 60fps and without a huge hit to IQ.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift apart / Spider-Man 2
Is a very unique case, in that Insomniac’s own proprietary Temporal Injection AA was very successful on the previous Pro console we had, and on the PS5. It delivered an admirable job filling in the blanks for our friendly Web-Head and our Tool packing friend, Ratchet. This, along with TLOU2 Remastered, being central in PlayStation PSSR marketing pitch, it is safe to say they have moved to that here. Based on that pitch the aim is to take the Image Quality of Fidelity mode and run it at 60fps, and that looks to be exactly what we have here. With such limited samples, likely best case scenarios for now, we get a sharp, stable, and very similar image quality to that 4K Dynamic Resolution Scaling mode. We do have an over sharpened image now though, which can cause some more flicker and more artifacts than on the PS5’s Fidelity mode. We also have a slight reduction in Rachet’s fur and sub pixel details in the PSSR image. Ray Tracing looks identical, but the de-noising is slightly better in PSSR reducing the dithered look in reflections. A fair trade for double the frames, but certainly areas for improvement here.
Here counts come out at full 4K, makes sense when static and being reconstructed, but under motion we appear to remain within 30% of that level. It is almost certainly using PSSR (likely due to bandwidth increased demands at 4K/60fps and a slightly over sharpened image) but the GPU grunt, aided by the fact it looks to be running the same performance RT mode settings. Such as LoD and as that mode already ran at a 1440p 60fps on base PS5, it would be well within an expected level for the PS5 Pro. Being inside 90% of 4K at 60fps almost matches that 45% rasterisation uplift Mark Cerny quoted from the 67% wider GPU. Reflecting what he said, and I discussed, back before the PS5’s reveal. A wider GPU is often not as easy to maximise, as faster but narrower one. Various reasons such as occupancy, LDS, threading etc present challenges on keeping the ALU’s busy.
Either or, we have a game that, from the limited sample points shown. Can take a 4K30 title on PS5 and simply double that to 60fps and here the effort on the patch has likely been relatively simple (no offence to the team). Knowing the team though, I would not be surprised to see improved Ray Tracing, shadows and other effects in other modes alongside PSSR to squeeze even more from the new hardware.
The Future looks Sharp
This is but a first and limited look into the benefits it offers. And right now, is nothing more than a preview based on the small samples we have. Meaning we cannot draw any concrete conclusions just yet. But, from a pre-release version of Sony’s first Machine Learning, hardware accelerated image upscaler, the results are mightily impressive at the first step, not a surprise for the image and hardware specialist the company is, games were just a 90s extension of the brand. It can have some over sharpening on certain elements and compared to the full 4K PS5 30fps you can be around better or worse depending on the game and scene. Flickering and some additional fizzle aside, on normal viewing and playing distance this looks to deliver on the marketing promise. Removing the need to choose between 4K clarity or 60fps fluidity, and that is almost exactly what we are presented with in these early demonstrations. The real test is how easy and widespread the 3rd party teams adopt and integrate PSSR into their existing engines and TAA solutions. But if the results can be as good or better than what we have here, your eyes may thank you for the upgrade.