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Digital Foundry: Fortnite Upgraded For PS5 Pro - Unreal Engine 5 Hardware RT Makes A Big Difference

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Looks like none of the regulars have made a DF thread on Alex's Fornite Pro patch, so I guess I'll take point on this one. I won't be doing any summary, and instead I'll drop the accompanying Eurogamer article plus a couple of screenshots I took from the video.



Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro is the most capable console money can buy right now, so it's only right that we should see Epic's Fortnite receive a substantial upgrade. The Pro's extra rasterisation performance is put to good use in delivering higher resolutions up against the standard model, but that's not really the game-changing difference. Instead, Epic deploys its higher end hardware ray tracing features to the 60fps mode of the game, offering a much improved level of global illumination and reflections - and it does so while maintaining its nigh-on flawless performance level. It's also interesting to note that one of Sony's 'big three' enhancements isn't used. Epic prefers its own Temporal Super Resolution technology (TSR) instead of the Pro's machine learning-based PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).

This is quite an interesting decision and I think it highlights some important aspects about how PSSR can, should and likely will be deployed in UE5 games. Epic has been working for a long time on TSR – four years, if not longer - and through its research and version updates, it has improved its quality while also reducing its cost via optimisations with minimal impact to overall quality. TSR is tailored to the needs of Epic's engine and is fully integrated and responsively developed with all the other techniques in the engine. TSR works as harmoniously as possible with the engine's particular quirks leading to generally competent image quality.

Epic avoiding PSSR for Fortnite makes sense. For one, PSSR will be more expensive from a computational perspective and in a world where this game doggedly runs at 60fps or 120fps, every millisecond counts. Secondly, TSR avoids issues that PSSR has - as seen recently in Silent Hill 2 on PS5 Pro. I imagine this will be something we commonly see in the near future for titles using Unreal Engine 5 until PSSR has proven itself as a viable alternative. In effect, with Epic sticking with TSR for its showcase game, a message is being sent from the engine's creators to its many licensees.

So, TSR stays and resolution increases. At one point I measured a 1080p internal resolution with Fortnite running on PS5, up against 1350p on Pro in the exact same scene. That's a 25 percent increase to axis resolution but more in the order of a 50 percent increase in overall pixel count. That is quite the resolution bump, which does not align with the spec differentials between PS5 and PS5 Pro, but it's worth pointing out that for energy saving reasons, the console versions of Fortnite pare back the dynamic resolution scaling solution's upper bounds… and it's uncertain if a similar limitation is enforced at all on PS5 Pro. In practice though, the difference is surprisingly minor due to TSR applying to both, despite a seemingly vast gulf in resolution. Pixel counts are not the story here.

Ray tracing is where things get interesting, because it comes in two forms in Unreal Engine 5 - software-based and hardware-based. Hardware RT isn't common at all on console UE5 titles, although the classic Matrix Awakens demo does have it, which may have given the impression that it would be more widely deployed. Since then, nearly every UE5 title has shipped with the lower quality software ray tracing instead. The fact that Fortnite on Pro gets hardware RT says to me that Epic doesn't think it's a good fit for base hardware, but can be used on PS5 Pro as an easy to use upgrade. Indeed, if you check out Silent Hill 2 on Pro, hardware RT is found in the 30fps quality mode where it is absent on the standard PS5 equivalent.

In terms of the difference, RT reflections are much improved. The engine now traces against triangles that make up an object instead of the blobby signed distance fields as found in software mode. Reflected trees actually look like trees as opposed to weirdly broken up, basic approximations. SDF LODs also see pop-in with reflections, which does not happen with hardware Lumen on PS5 Pro. Everything looks stable and more consistent. The same applies to shadows from objects in reflections – they're blobby and confusing in the software mode, while the tree shadows look a lot more like the real deal in hardware mode. Moving objects like characters are added into reflections as well, which are not there with software ray tracing. The most obvious example of this is that your own player character isn't present in reflections on PS5 - but it is on Pro. Other dynamic objects like moving cars and other players are also rendered in reflections with hardware RT, but not in the software version on the base console.
D56O8hD.png

Global illumination also benefits to varying degrees. The nature of diffuse lighting is that it doesn't need a huge amount of precision so in some cases, software Lumen works fine on the existing game, but as you'll see highlighted in the video embedded above, sometimes the lighting just isn't physically plausible, while temporal stability is another big problem with obvious flickering problems. All of this is gone on PS5 Pro thanks to hardware accelerated RT. Dynamic object lighting is also dramatically improved, the floating effect seen on base PS5's software solution replaced with distinct, accurate bounce lighting in world space as objects made of triangles are traced against, not just in screen-space as is the case with software Lumen.
pICgi6j.png

The last big difference on Pro vs PS5 is in the stability of lighting. Since hardware Lumen can literally 'see' more objects to finer precision, it has fewer errors and 'boiling' artefacts. Most emissive lighting in software Lumen is in screen-space so it is very unstable, whereas hardware Lumen samples it better, making it more stable in motion.

RT is the key upgrade then but there are a couple more points to make. The 120fps game mode never had cutting-edge Unreal Engine 5 features to begin with, so perhaps it's inevitable that the PS5 Pro version looks practically identical, with an almost perfect 120fps read-out. 60fps performance - even with the upgrades - remains solid overall, only dropping the odd frame at moments of intense load, and even then, very briefly. Frame-rate dips are very rare and essentially unnoticeable though whether you're gaming on the standard PS5 or the Pro model.
As for PS5 Pro settings comparisons to PC, it's interesting to see that despite the enhancements, the new console isn't getting across-the-board equivalents to PC's 'epic' settings. For example, with RT reflections, we're on the equivalent of PC's high, based on the lighting detail and geometry seen in those reflections, along with their overall resolution. Diffuse lighting on PS5 Pro is indeed closest to the highest 'epic' setting though, where the high setting on PC introduces speckled artefacts onto geometric edges at times and also has a fuzzy grainer look in general.

There are two other settings tweaks that surprised me, however. TSR is set to around the medium quality setting on Pro, with more aliased edges than high or ultra equivalents. This is a computationally cheap setting on PC, so I'm curious as to why this was chosen. Lastly, there is the post-processing quality setting, which on the high setting removes some of the more cinematic tone mapping bloom found on 'epic'.
Even with this settings mix, we're still getting a big upgrade over the standard PS5 version of the game, especially when it comes to the base console's lack of hardware ray tracing support. Seriously, it would be great to see more UE5 games ship on PS5 Pro with hardware RT as the quality advantages are substantial, as this piece hopefully demonstrates. Maybe it wouldn't be possible for all games' 60fps performance modes, but as Silent Hill 2 demonstrates, it can find a home in 30fps quality modes for sure. For now though, Fortnite continues to work as a great 'shop window' for Unreal Engine 5 on consoles, with an intelligently deployed upgrade that taps into the strengths of the new hardware. Even if you're not a fan of the game, it remains absolutely gorgeous, and it's well worth checking out.
 
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bitbydeath

Member
The next season arrives in the next 24hrs or so, with a brand new map so they’ll probably need to redo this again.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
I'm glad Epic introduced Lumen. It's a good compromise for raytraced lighting. It caused a lot of other developers to implement performant RTGI in their in house engines like Ubisoft and Capcom.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
3rd party developers who use UE5 should consider the Epic approach to the Pro and not feel compelled to use PSSR.

Basically PSSR isn't worth bothering with. I honestly would love to see a comparison on the Pro with Rebirth using PSSR vs using UE4's TAAU.
 

Zathalus

Member
Really impressive upgrade that plays to the Pro strengths. Smart use of hardware lumen and a resolution bump takes advantage of the increase in GPU power and RT uplifts, while good TSR instead of PSSR is good to prevent issues the later has with RTGI. A template for how Pro upgrades should be.
 

Loomy

Banned
You think MAYBE the developers who created the engine maybe have a little advantage here?
They absolutely do, but it's not like UE5 is some mystery black box. Developers who put in the time and effort to optimize their games are seeing the benefits of the using the engine.

The differentiating factor are the developers, not the engine.
 

kevboard

Member
it's too bad that this is probably the biggest waste of a good UE5 port.

because if you don't want to get your ass handed to you you basically are forced to play the 120fps mode, not necessarily because of the higher framerate, but mainly because the worse graphics give you a massive competitive advantage.
 

JaksGhost

Member
It's wild that they are admitting Silent Hill 2 has hardware RT on the Pro, while keeping it absent from both videos/articles written about the game, but are mentioning it here.
if you check out Silent Hill 2 on Pro, hardware RT is found in the 30fps quality mode where it is absent on the standard PS5 equivalent.
For now it seems that the Unreal Engine 5 engine does well with the Pro in the absense of PSSR due to the rasterisation power helping increase resolution and performance. It's hasn't been a full month since release so it has time to mature.
 
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cripterion

Member
Honestly good informative video.
I'm sure more games will better make use of the Pro down the line. Not sure if I'll get one as it's crazy expensive here in Japan and I want to get a video card next year...

Also what I need from PS6 is 100% hardware ray traced games and gamepads that don't fucking drift!
 

sachos

Member
Wow nice update! 56% increase in resolution while support HW RT. Alex really knows how to showcase raytracing features and it shows. The game has a "darker" more grounded look than base PS5 now thanks to the better RT accuracy.
I would have liked to see performance comparison against a 6800 XT/7700 XT though, why not do it in this game if he knows the settings?
 

Darsxx82

Member
The upgrade somehow goes further, than the basic +33% of the raw power. Good job!
Well, it's also true that Epic decided to remove DRS on PS5/XSX which could reach ~1300p.

And it's also true that in the latest UE5.5 update, optimization to allow Hardware RT at 60fps on current consoles is announced as a main feature.

Maybe a new update with the next Fornite Chapter 6 this Sunday? Graphix upgrades for Fornite always comes out with new chapter....Which for me is disgusting because it is the last game where I would like to see technological and graphic innovations🙃

From here, of course, maybe the best-built Pro patches. TSR instead of PSSR is a smart/intelligent choice right now. It's a great resolution scaling system and it gets better with each UE5 update. I have no doubt that Epic will come up with their own TSR formula based AI in a future.
 
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kevboard

Member
The upgrade somehow goes further, than the basic +33% of the raw power. Good job!

yeah, but Epic intentionally limited the resolution on the other consoles. it's hard to say how they would compare if all of them could just run as high as they can.
 
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Calico345

Gold Member
Remember when video games weren't corporate battlegrounds for meaningless visual nonsense? Remember when video games were just about fun, and the eventual improvements in tech just meant cooler looking games?
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
yeah, but Epic intentionally limited the resolution on the other consoles. it's hard to say how they would compare if all of them could just run as high as they can.
Because of the low power mode, but it might be the case for the Pro too.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
That is quite the resolution bump, which does not align with the spec differentials between PS5 and PS5 Pro,
huh? PS5 is 10.2 tflops. PS5 Pro is 16.7 tflops. 36 CU vs 60 CU. 66% more compute units. Same clocks. Thats a 63% boost in compute power. Not to mention the 2x better RT performance thanks to new RDNA4 rt cores.

We have no seen games perform upto spec, but that doesnt mean the performance here doesnt align with the spec differential when it literally fucking does. If anything the other games where the console is offering only a 30% boost are the ones where the performance doesnt align with the spec.

Hardware Lumen is roughly 18% heavier than Software Lumen according to Alex's own findings in the matrix demo. himself. He's seeing a 50% increase in pixels. That gets us to 68% better performance.
 
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