The PS5 Pro is a rumored upgrade for the PlayStation 5, although it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet. Some gamers who already have a PS5 wonder if this upgrade is really needed. Despite the lack of official confirmation, leaks suggest that the PS5 Pro is likely. Whether these rumors are accurate or not, there are reasons why a PS5 Pro could be useful.
4K Remains Elusive on Consoles
When the PS4 Pro came out, it was made for the increasing number of people buying 4K TVs. The regular PlayStation 4 was designed for 1080p TVs. But actually making games run in 4K was often difficult. That’s why the PS4 Pro had a special feature called “checkerboard” rendering to help with this.
When the PlayStation 5 came out, it could easily handle older PS4 games in 4K. That’s because the PS5 is much more powerful than the PS4. But with new games made just for the PS5, developers are choosing more fancy graphics over high resolution. Sometimes, they even have to lower the frame rate to 30 frames per second (fps).
A PS5 Pro could make games made for the regular PS5 look better. It could make the picture clearer and the movement smoother. If we’re really lucky, it could do both. Having two versions of the console is helpful. If the PS5 Pro became the regular model, developers might focus too much on fancy graphics and make games run at lower resolutions and frame rates again.
Frame Rates Are Dropping
The PS5 was supposed to handle games at 120 frames per second (fps), which is great for people with TVs and monitors that support 120Hz. But not many games actually run at 120fps. One benefit of having a 120Hz TV is that games like Horizon Forbidden West can run at 40fps smoothly. This works well because 40fps divides evenly into 120, but it would stutter on a TV with a 60Hz display.
Even getting games to run at 60fps is becoming rare. And when they do, the picture quality is often not good. If a PS5 game can’t go above 60fps because of its processor, then a PS5 Pro probably won’t have better frame rates, since the processor isn’t expected to be much faster according to the leaked specs. But if a game runs at 60fps on the regular PS5 with bad picture quality, a PS5 Pro might make 60fps modes look better.
Ray Tracing Was DOA on the Base PS5
Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles were planned years before they were released, which makes sense. But just before the PS5 came out, NVIDIA introduced its RTX series of GPUs. These GPUs can do real-time ray tracing, which is a big jump in graphics technology. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 look much better on PC with ray tracing than on consoles. While current consoles can do some ray tracing, it’s not very good.
That’s why ray tracing in console games is limited. Usually, it’s just for things like shadows or reflections, and they don’t look as good as the rest of the game. The PS5 Pro could change that, especially since AMD, who makes the PS5 and Xbox GPUs, has caught up to NVIDIA in ray tracing.
Ray tracing can make games look a lot better if it’s done right, and it could be a big selling point for the PS5 Pro.
Better Upscaling Tech Is Needed
NVIDIA surprised AMD not only with ray tracing but also with DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) when they launched their RTX cards. DLSS uses machine learning and algorithms trained on NVIDIA’s supercomputers to make games look better. It can take a game at a lower resolution and make it look like it’s at a higher resolution without losing any detail. DLSS had some problems at first, but now it’s so good that sometimes it looks as good as or even better than native resolution.
Consoles use AMD’s FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) technology, which is software-based and not as good as DLSS. It has a lot of image quality issues and makes current-generation console games look worse.
The leaked specifications for the PS5 Pro suggest it will have a custom AI-powered upscaling technology. This could be a big deal. If it’s as good as DLSS, it could make games look much better on 4K TVs, even if the game’s internal resolution is lower for better performance.
Even if you’re satisfied with your PS5 and its performance, it’s evident that a PS5 Pro could bring some noticeable improvements for players. Whether these improvements actually happen is uncertain, but there’s certainly potential for something better.
