PS5 Pro appears to help a lot with performance mode, analysis finds

We now know that the PlayStation 5 Pro will mainly offer some performance boosts over the base PlayStation 5 console, but what does that mean exactly? Sony can say that there will be more frames per second (fps)or higher resolutions, but what does that look like, and is it worth the $700 upfront cost?

Well, Digital Foundry has some answers. Contributor Oliver Mackenzie looked at seven minutes of “broadcast-grade ProRes footage” from Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and found that the PS5 Pro does deliver improvements — but mostly if you’re comparing it to the game’s dreadful performance mode on the base console.

In its analysis, which you can watch in the video above, Digital Foundry found that images are sharper overall, textures come in less blurry, and while ghosting still exists, it’s minor and only shows up occasionally. That’s a huge improvement compared to the PS5. The video highlights a particular moment with Barret, whose pores are now more pronounced than they were on the regular PS5, which made his face look like it was covered in grease. Tifa’s hair doesn’t look any more realistic, but it wouldn’t just based on how it was designed. Dithering, however, has been minimized.

One of the problems Sony wanted to solve with the PS5 Pro, according to lead architect Mark Cerny during the console’s announcement, was the difference between performance mode, where games are rendered at 1080p and 120 fps, and resolution/fidelity mode, which lets them hit up to 4K at 60 fps. With a game like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you could go with performance mode for the most frames, but then you’ll endure a lot of smudged images and blurry textures.

This all becomes more apparent during combat. Mackenzie described it as looking “muddy” on the base console, but the “PS5 Pro handles this scene impressively … resolving crisp 4K-like detail even in relatively fast combat scenes.”

Digital Foundry speculates that Square Enix used PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), a new upscaling feature exclusive to the PS5 Pro. Similar to what PC players get with Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling (DLSS), PSSR can help games output better image quality with the aid of machine learning. So instead of adding native 4K rendering, which can seriously drag down a system, the PS5 Pro uses AI to do the heavy lifting to produce sharper, more detailed images. Even motion blur appears to be rendered at 4K, so everything looks smooth.

However, Mackenzie goes on to say that other visual settings appear to be similar to what you’d get on the base PS5. Foliage pop-in looked the same, and lighting still doesn’t look natural — despite Sony saying the PS5 Pro would support more advanced ray tracing.

The PS5 Pro, as we already mentioned, will cost $700 when it goes up for preorder on September 26 and at launch on November 7. It has updated specs and boasts a thinner design, but it doesn’t come with a disc drive or stand.