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The Verge: Sony wants 60fps PS5 Pro ‘Enhanced’ games, but it’s happy to settle for less

Topher

Identifies as young
Someone explain this to me like I'm 5. Isn't the Pro supposed to have a DLSS-like solution for FPS? Is it really that outlandish to expect 60 fps for lots of titles? I'm out of my depth here.

Yeah, PSSR is Sony's upscaling tech. I'm guessing they took AMD's FSR and optimized it specifically for PS5 Pro. Most titles already have performance mode options. PS5 Pro, to me, just means devs will have to compromise less for it. I really don't see much in games these days that suggest they could not do 60fps.
 

Bernoulli

M2 slut
Someone explain this to me like I'm 5. Isn't the Pro supposed to have a DLSS-like solution for FPS? Is it really that outlandish to expect 60 fps for lots of titles? I'm out of my depth here.
Unlike PC devs need to add the 60 fps option. On PC you are free to change your framerate and settings
Hellblade 2 on xsx has 30 fps only, if there is an Xbox Pro they need to add a 60 fps option
 
"Sony is also working on an ultra-boost mode for older games to make them run better on the PS5 Pro."


Taken from the article btw :)
Dj Khaled Mtv Emas GIF by 2020 MTV EMA
This should mean a specific overclocked mode for likely both CPU and GPU when used in PS5 only mode. I am expecting something like CPU at 4ghz and GPU at 2.5ghz.
 

rm082e

Member
Someone explain this to me like I'm 5. Isn't the Pro supposed to have a DLSS-like solution for FPS? Is it really that outlandish to expect 60 fps for lots of titles? I'm out of my depth here.

Expect 60fps for a lot of titles? No, that's not outlandish. But to expect it for every title, or to expect it on specific titles is outlandish.

A lot of it depends on how much work developers want to do for a game. In theory, a developer could do the work to have the game run at a lower native resolution and let PSSR upscale it (assuming that works as well as DLSS). By running at a lower resolution, they should be able to increase the frame rate.

But there are many details in that equation that could prevent a game from running at a smooth 60fps. Depending on the engine, the game design, the budget, etc. there will inevitably be games where it just doesn't make financial sense to put in the work needed to get a 60fps performance mode.

The bigger picture (beyond the PS5 Pro) is most gamers feel 60fps is important these days, and they'd rather have that smooth frame rate than a higher native resolution. The industry is slowly responding to this, but it can't turn on a dime. Game Engines, the additional tools, hardware companies, developers, etc. are all moving in that direction, but there's no silver bullet solution.
 

midnightAI

Banned
"but it’s happy to settle for less"

Uh, what? Thought the Pro was meant to solve the fact that games aren't 60fps and now they're saying that it's fine if it doesn't? Fuck off.

Who said that? Sony cant mandate what 3rd party do, and for Sony's current internal first party PS5 games they pretty much all have a 60fps mode anyway. What are they supposed to do, not allow 3rd party games that cant hit 60fps on the Pro?
 
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Euler007

Member
If VRR is on I don't mind if frame times increase here and there (mostly because I won't notice).
 
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rm082e

Member
Question: Does anyone know if Sony ever set aside money to cover the costs for developers doing PS4 Pro patches on existing games?

I work as a manager at a software company. When a customer says "We want this new functionality that you don't have", we estimate the time it would take to develop and test, quote them $150 an hour for the cost, and they typically need to pay for it (not always, but often).

If Sony just puts their Pro console out and doesn't give developers some money, I could see it being a tough sell to go back and update an existing PS5 game with additional features. My first question as a manager would be "How is doing this work going to result in more money coming in?"
 

Astray

Member
Someone at the Verge has a vendetta against Playstation.
It's Tom Warren the guy who pops up every morning on Twitter to tell us that Microsoft changed the location of the bookmarks button 3 pixels to the left or whatever.

His allegiance is known.

Question: Does anyone know if Sony ever set aside money to cover the costs for developers doing PS4 Pro patches on existing games?

I work as a manager at a software company. When a customer says "We want this new functionality that you don't have", we estimate the time it would take to develop and test, quote them $150 an hour for the cost, and they typically need to pay for it (not always, but often).

If Sony just puts their Pro console out and doesn't give developers some money, I could see it being a tough sell to go back and update an existing PS5 game with additional features. My first question as a manager would be "How is doing this work going to result in more money coming in?"
Relatively small amount of work to get a chance at converting more of the more affluent PS5 consumers (who else would buy the pro?) via being eligible for a store filter placement..
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Question: Does anyone know if Sony ever set aside money to cover the costs for developers doing PS4 Pro patches on existing games?

I work as a manager at a software company. When a customer says "We want this new functionality that you don't have", we estimate the time it would take to develop and test, quote them $150 an hour for the cost, and they typically need to pay for it (not always, but often).

If Sony just puts their Pro console out and doesn't give developers some money, I could see it being a tough sell to go back and update an existing PS5 game with additional features. My first question as a manager would be "How is doing this work going to result in more money coming in?"

Yeah, but that isn't the scenario here. I'm a software developer and so I understand what you are saying, but this is a completely optional effort game devs will have to undertake. The money would theoretically come in the form of more units sold. If a game like Jedi Survivor, which ran horribly on PS5, can get see increased sales on PS5 Pro then the cost for doing that work may be justified. Every dev will have to determine that for themselves, but I think there is also a matter of publicity. Outlets like Digital Foundry did a number of analyitical pieces last gen for games that offered upgrades for mid-gen refreshes. That's free PR if nothing else.

This isn't a case where a software dev company has a specific client and new features or enhancements are paid for by that client.
 
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Anchovie123

Member
This whole "PS5 Pro Enhanced label" thing has been such a mess. Obviously the guidelines meant "any or all of the above" regarding enhancements.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
This whole "PS5 Pro Enhanced label" thing has been such a mess. Obviously the guidelines meant "any or all of the above" regarding enhancements.

There does appear to be some minimum standards that have to be met. Not sure if they are strict enough though.

"Simply running a game at a more stable frame rate on PS5 Pro is not enough for the Enhanced label, though. Sony also won’t add the label to games that run with a variable resolution and see increased resolution on the PS5 Pro that doesn’t improve the maximum resolution. So if a game moves from 1440p–2160p variable to 1800p–2160p variable, this will not qualify for the Enhanced label."
 

rm082e

Member
Yeah, but that isn't the scenario here. I'm a software developer and so I understand what you are saying, but this is a completely optional effort game devs will have to undertake. The money would theoretically come in the form of more units sold. If a game like Jedi Survivor, which ran horribly on PS5, can get see increased sales on PS5 Pro then the cost for doing that work may be justified. Every dev will have to determine that for themselves, but I think there is also a matter of publicity. Outlets like Digital Foundry did a number of analyitical pieces last gen for games that offered upgrades for mid-gen refreshes. That's free PR if nothing else.

This isn't a case where a software dev company has a specific client and new features or enhancements are paid for by that client.

Thank you. I wasn't sure if there was a clear path to that additional work resulting in an increase in sales that would cover the costs. It's good to hear there are incentives out there.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
If this is true than the system has no reason to exist unless it’s replacing the existing model. A pro system that offers nothing but improved RT isn’t needed IMHO. You got AAA games stuck at 30fps. I understand marketing but games need better frames not graphics IMHO.

I'm afraid you don't understand why a PRO console exist then.
 

rm082e

Member
That's what upscaling (PSSR) is for, but only AFTER you already have reached 1080p Ultra + RT at 60fps+.

Looking at how this works on the PC in a game like Cyberpunk, the bigger gap you try to make up for between native render and output resolution, the worse the quality looks. Rendering at 1080 and upscaling to 4K is probably not going to be great. Rendering at 1440 or 1800 and upscaling to 4K is going to look a lot closer to a native 4K render.

In that scenario, I doubt many devs would choose to include RT and render at 1080 since RT generally isn't worth the bandwidth sacrifice. More likely, they will choose 1440/60fps for their performance modes. I suspect we will only see RT included in "quality" modes where the first thing they sacrifice is 60fps (just like they currently do on the PS5).
 
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Fbh

Member
Well you can't not upgrade the CPU and then demand 60fps.

Someone explain this to me like I'm 5. Isn't the Pro supposed to have a DLSS-like solution for FPS? Is it really that outlandish to expect 60 fps for lots of titles? I'm out of my depth here.

I think we've heard about a DLSS like resolution upscaling, not sure if we've heard about some frame generation tech.
If that's the case it probably wouldn't do much for games like Dragons Dogma 2 or Act 3 in Baldur's Gate 3 since those have a CPU bottleneck.
Even if it has some frame generating tech, from my understanding most of the current ones work best getting 60fps games to run better, the results trying to get a game running at 30fps to look and feel like 60 seem very mixed

Question: Does anyone know if Sony ever set aside money to cover the costs for developers doing PS4 Pro patches on existing games?

I work as a manager at a software company. When a customer says "We want this new functionality that you don't have", we estimate the time it would take to develop and test, quote them $150 an hour for the cost, and they typically need to pay for it (not always, but often).

If Sony just puts their Pro console out and doesn't give developers some money, I could see it being a tough sell to go back and update an existing PS5 game with additional features. My first question as a manager would be "How is doing this work going to result in more money coming in?"

Is it really that more expensive to make a pro version?
PC versions of games support tons hardware configurations, tons of resolutions, graphical settings and features, upscaling techniques, etc and as far as I know that doesn't make them any more expensive to make than a console game.
These "pro" versions of games usually just feel like the equivalent of someone going to the settings menu on a PC game and moving some sliders a bit to the right.
I'm sure it still involves a cost in terms of testing and all that, but it can't be that crazy right?
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
As long as the scaler is as good as implied, this could end up with some very nice upgrades for a whole group of amazing games. Might have to buy two pro machines.......saving points now!
 

rm082e

Member
Is it really that more expensive to make a pro version?
PC versions of games support tons hardware configurations, tons of resolutions, graphical settings and features, upscaling techniques, etc and as far as I know that doesn't make them any more expensive to make than a console game.
These "pro" versions of games usually just feel like the equivalent of someone going to the settings menu on a PC game and moving some sliders a bit to the right.
I'm sure it still involves a cost in terms of testing and all that, but it can't be that crazy right?

I am not in game development so I have no first hand experience. But from what I've heard, it didn't sound like it was as simple as changing a few options in a menu and hitting save on the PS4 Pro. It sounded like there was more to it. From what we've heard about PS5 Pro, they're trying to make it easier, but I don't know exactly what that entails.

I mainly asked that question because it's common for people to think development efforts should take a lot less time than they actually do. Most of the time when either an external party or an internal team member asks for a development estimate, they're thinking it's 1/4 to 1/3 the actual amount of time it would take. Maybe I'm incorrectly mapping that same sort of underestimation onto the situation with the Pro consoles?
 

Anchovie123

Member
There does appear to be some minimum standards that have to be met. Not sure if they are strict enough though.

"Simply running a game at a more stable frame rate on PS5 Pro is not enough for the Enhanced label, though. Sony also won’t add the label to games that run with a variable resolution and see increased resolution on the PS5 Pro that doesn’t improve the maximum resolution. So if a game moves from 1440p–2160p variable to 1800p–2160p variable, this will not qualify for the Enhanced label."
Hmmm you're right. But something isnt adding up here. The examples in the article dont make a whole lot of sense. Why would a 1080p-1440p(PS5) to 1280p-2160p(Pro) classify as enhanced but not 1440p-2160p(PS5) to 1800p-2160p(Pro) when arguably the latter is a larger jump? :pie_thinking:
 

Three

Gold Member
Hmmm you're right. But something isnt adding up here. The examples in the article dont make a whole lot of sense. Why would a 1080p-1440p(PS5) to 1280p-2160p(Pro) classify as enhanced but not 1440p-2160p(PS5) to 1800p-2160p(Pro) when arguably the latter is a larger jump? :pie_thinking:
I don't follow. How would min 1440p to 1800p be a bigger jump than max 1440p to 2160p?

The scaling would have to be terribly broken.
 
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ChiefDada

Gold Member
Hmmm you're right. But something isnt adding up here. The examples in the article dont make a whole lot of sense. Why would a 1080p-1440p(PS5) to 1280p-2160p(Pro) classify as enhanced but not 1440p-2160p(PS5) to 1800p-2160p(Pro) when arguably the latter is a larger jump? :pie_thinking:

Because the target resolution in your first example is higher.
 

Mr Moose

Member
Hmmm you're right. But something isnt adding up here. The examples in the article dont make a whole lot of sense. Why would a 1080p-1440p(PS5) to 1280p-2160p(Pro) classify as enhanced but not 1440p-2160p(PS5) to 1800p-2160p(Pro) when arguably the latter is a larger jump? :pie_thinking:
Because that's just dynamic resolution in the 2nd example, which is expected anyway.
 

Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
If this is true than the system has no reason to exist unless it’s replacing the existing model. A pro system that offers nothing but improved RT isn’t needed IMHO. You got AAA games stuck at 30fps. I understand marketing but games need better frames not graphics IMHO.
That's pretty much a Pro-console in a nutshell.
 
Diminishing returns for sure. Not really sure I see the point, to be honest. The selling point of this seems to be harder to figure out/ quantify than PS4 Pro. Which already was a mid-tier seller.

I think Sony's going to have trouble marketing this thing with a clear, compelling concept.
 
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"Sony is also working on an ultra-boost mode for older games to make them run better on the PS5 Pro."


Taken from the article btw :)
Dj Khaled Mtv Emas GIF by 2020 MTV EMA
I certainly hope so. That's the only way I might buy this. I want to go back to my 30fps PS4 and PS5 games and replay them at 60. I don't care about ray/path tracing, because it adds nothing to the gameplay. Nor do I care about native 4k, because 1440p looks good enough to me from where I sit.
 
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Anchovie123

Member
I don't follow. How would min 1440p to 1800p be a bigger jump than max 1440p to 2160p?

The scaling would have to be terribly broken.
Because a guaranteed minimum of 1800p+ (from 1440p) seems better then a vague "1280p to 2160p" to me 🤷‍♂️

Because that's just dynamic resolution in the 2nd example, which is expected anyway.
Also true, the second example may not even be patched and is just seeing general uplift from the Pro. Still doesn't make a whole lot of sense but whatever.
 
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