I played the PS5 Pro, and it’s clearly better

Eight years ago, PlayStation lead architect Mark Cerny showed me the power of the PS4 Pro in this very room. Today, I’m checking out the new PS5 Pro instead — and feeling some major déjà vu.

Like before, Sony is showing journalists a room full of screens at its PlayStation US headquarters just outside of San Francisco, playing 11 games side by side on both the original hardware and the guts of the new $700 Pro. Like before, you’ll pay a hefty premium for graphical improvements rather than new titles. Like before, games will need to be patched to give you most of those boosts, and not all patches will be equal.

And like before, those improvements are seriously impressive if your TV is close enough to your couch. This time, it brings out details like individual blades of grass, improves the density of particles onscreen, unlocks optional 8K and ray tracing modes, and even reduces the distracting shimmering that often popped up in games on the original console.

Michiel van der Leeuw, technical director on all the Horizon games, shows me how much smoother Horizon Forbidden West can be on the PS5 Pro, how much sharper now that it’s sampling textures that render more crisply, and how it no longer needs to display the same ugly clouds.

“It was as if a pair of dirty goggles had been lifted from my eyes,” I wrote in 2016 about the PS4 Pro. I get the exact same vibe from Horizon and most other PS5 Pro Enhanced games I’m trying now.

I’ll get into more details below, but I want you to know my conclusion isn’t quite the same as it was eight years ago. While it’s clearly better than the PS5, I’m not yet sold. That’s mostly because Sony is charging several hundred dollars more than last time — but also partly because I had to stand so close to the 4K screen to get that eye-popping result.

Sony’s demos keep us so close to the TVs it’s impossible not to see improvements, with fixed-length wired controllers encouraging us to stay nearby. When I step back anyhow, the PS5 Pro’s graphical improvements get harder to make out. Some disappear at six feet, most of them at 10 feet, in game after game. That’s a bit further than I measured with the PS4 Pro vs. PS4 eight years ago.

But if you’re the kind of person who already sets your PS5 games to “Quality” or “Fidelity” or “Graphics” mode rather than “Performance,” I bet you’ll see a huge increase in smoothness with the PS5 Pro no matter how far away you sit. Some went from utterly choppy to downright buttery for me on the PS5 Pro, with almost all the visual quality (if not more) than the original PS5’s fidelity modes.

The biggest surprise for me, though, was seeing a console that can offer so many of the immersive benefits of ray tracing without massive slowdowns. It’s unlikely many games will add ray tracing modes specifically for the PS5 Pro, but Formula One racing game F1 24 already had them — and it now lets you drive at an upscaled 4K and 60fps with them turned on.

When producer Simon Lumb flicks ray-traced graphics on and off for me, it feels like the whole image comes to life. Suddenly, the car’s crash-protection halo casts realistic shadows on the bodywork; reflections naturally appear in puddles on the track and on the car’s shiny hood; windows appear to refract light.

Both F1 24 and Gran Turismo 7 will let you choose other modes instead of ray tracing. They can optionally use the PS5 Pro’s extra horsepower and AI upscaling to offer an 8K picture (for the few and proud with 8K TVs), or a smoother 120Hz mode at 4K upscaled resolution instead. But now that I’ve experienced it, I’d pick ray tracing every time.

Quick note: if a developer says their game is running at “4K” resolution, you should know that’s not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison with other “4K” games. In every case, the PS5 Pro is outputting a 4K picture to your TV thanks to the magic of AI upscaling, with all the crispness that provides. The game’s internal render resolution may be quite a bit lower, though, and it varies as you play, all of which can affect the end quality.

Developers tell me that Sony’s PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) upscaling can keep up with all of that, turning a 720p image into a 4K one on the fly at 59.94 frames per second — but 720p upscaled to 2160p may not look as good as 1440p upscaled to 2160p, of course. Some developers might still want to sacrifice frame rate for resolution if Sony lets them. (A leaked document suggests they might, but Sony has not confirmed.)

Also: while developer after developer tells me the PS5 Pro provides “the best of both worlds” with fidelity and performance, the PS5 Pro doesn’t quite offer double the performance of the original console — so some small sacrifices are being made.

For example, Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 actually runs at a lower render resolution in its new PS5 Pro “Performance Pro” mode than it does in the “Fidelity” mode on the original PS5. While I vastly preferred the PS5 Pro experience, it does lead to some interesting edge cases where fine detail on certain objects (like windows on distant buildings) might not be quite as easy to make out.

With Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, the same developer took a different tack: if you look closely, there are actually fewer spectators in the stands in the PS5 Pro’s “Performance Pro” mode compared to the vanilla PS5’s “Fidelity” mode. Still, the game looks both smoother and crisper thanks to the PS5 Pro changes, so it’s hard for me to complain. More detail in some areas too!

When developers do have to choose, several tell me they decided to prioritize “stability,” fixing the most glaring sacrifices they had to make on the original console. But some games will ship with their original Performance and Fidelity modes, too, in case you prefer them.

And a few games really do look like the best of both worlds: I couldn’t find a single sacrifice in my short time with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth — the hair and fine details on PS5 Pro even exceed the original PS5’s “Graphics” mode.

We’re looking forward to getting a PS5 Pro in for testing so we can do a full review. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with some rough notes on each game I saw!

• Demon’s Souls: One single PS5 Pro mode that targets 60fps at a PSSR-upscaled 4K resolution — may not always hit 60 but feels very smooth for a FromSoftware game. Will retain old modes, too. Lots of extra souls-like particle effects thanks to PSSR! Can see flagpoles on a castle in the distance from Boletaria Bridge that aren’t visible on the original PS5, as long as I’m no further than five feet from the TV.
• Dragon’s Dogma II: PS5 Pro mode currently hitting 55–60fps VRR in the city, capped at 60fps outside, at PSSR-upscaled 4K resolution. Wouldn’t discuss internal resolution.
• F1 24: 1440p render resolution, PSSR-upscaled to 4K at locked 60fps. Ray-tracing mode also 4K, locked 60fps. 4K120 and 8K60 modes, too. On original PS5, had to run at half-res internally to hit 4K60, so 1440p is an improvement.
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: One single PS5 Pro mode at PSSR-upscaled 4K60, variable internal resolution. Best showcase game for the PS5 Pro, as the original PS5’s performance mode looks muddy by comparison. Can clearly see scratches on Cloud’s sword from five feet that are invisible in original PS5’s performance mode; can barely make them out at eight feet.
• Gran Turismo 7: Four PS5 Pro modes: prioritize ray tracing, prioritize frame rate, 8K mode, 120Hz 4K mode, all using PSSR for upscaling and all targeting 60fps; 8K mode slightly sharper than 4K. Ray tracing mode clearly lets cars show reflections of one another.
• Hogwarts Legacy: Three PS5 Pro modes: fidelity, fidelity + ray tracing, performance. PS5 Pro perf mode has more detail than original PS5 perf mode. Ray tracing looks impressive (but targets 30fps), now includes ray-traced shadows and more detail in reflections. All modes dynamic internal resolution, but now capped at 80 percent of 4K rather than 67 percent of 4K.
• Horizon Forbidden West: One single PS5 Pro mode at PSSR-upscaled 4K60, based on “higher than 1440p” variable internal resolution. Will also offer old PS5 modes. On original PS5, offered 1800p checkerboard based on lower internal resolution. Far less distracting shimmering on distant details, increased texture detail (all textures one mipmap crisper), increased shadow filtering quality in faces, and more.
• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: One single PS5 Pro mode at PSSR-upscaled 4K60, based on lower render resolution than original Fidelity mode. Considering a “Fidelity Pro” mode as well. Shimmering cleaned up dramatically at distance.
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: One single PS5 Pro mode at PSSR-upscaled 4K60, based on “generally a tick or two higher” internal render resolution than on PS5. (Original render resolution varied but minimum ranged from 1080p to around 1280p depending on mode.) Small details like bits of confetti don’t disappear as easily; reduced shimmering on details.
• The Crew Motorfest: One single PS5 Pro mode at PSSR-upscaled 4K60. Increased load distances, shadow distances, but can’t quite tell the difference at racing speeds. Increased internal resolution too, though: I can make out a spoiler’s carbon fiber texture at five feet from TV, which I can’t see on original PS5.
• The Last of Us Part II Remastered: One single PS5 Pro mode at 4K60, PSSR-upscaled from 1440p. On original PS5, only offered native 4K30 or 1440p60. It’s clearly far sharper than 1440p60 (the grass!) and far smoother than 4K30. Some slight details in the original native 4K30 arguably look better.

Photos by Sean Hollister / The Verge