It was the first console designed to tackle gaming for ultra HD displays, and the first mid-generation ‘refresh’ offering a substantial boost to performance over launch hardware. Since its 2016 debut, PlayStation 4 Pro has delivered some exceptional results for 4K living displays – results that seem almost miraculous for a 4.2 teraflop GPU – but in the years since, the Pro has evolved in new, unexpected directions. While 4K was initially the focus for the machine, I’d now say that it’s something of a gem for 1080p display users as well. In fact, if you’ve stuck with your standard unit, now could be a good time to upgrade.
Let’s consider the evidence – and it begins with the specifications of the PS4 Pro itself. Having discussed the hardware with many developers, Pro has two fundamental issues in delivering pristine quality 4K gaming. GPU compute has doubled over the standard model, opening the door to temporal supersampling and checkerboarding solutions that – as seen in many titles – can look exceptional on an ultra HD display. However, developers have to address the reality that the extra compute power is not backed by a similar boost in memory bandwidth. Meanwhile, a mere 512MB of extra memory to service a 2x-4x increase in pixel density also causes challenges.
At the same time, developers are pushing their games harder than ever before. A good example of this is Just Cause 4 – when I looked at the game at launch, the price paid for solid performance was the use of aggressive dynamic resolution scaling. The standard PS4 is known as a 1080p gaming machine, but JC4’s DRS could see the game bottom out at 720p. PS4 Pro has since been patched with a checkerboard-rendered presentation, but at launch, it mostly sat at 1080p – and it was the smoothest, most consistent performer out of all the console versions.
Avalanche Studios isn’t alone in pushing the hardware. Namco Bandai’s Tekken 7 and Soulcalibur 6 both target and achieve a solid 60 frames per second, but achieving this goal on PlayStation 4 required compromising on resolution – both are somewhat blurry sub-native games, while the Pro delivers 1080p with some additional graphical flourishes. Also built on Unreal Engine 4, Ace Combat 7 also fails to deliver native 1080p on the standard PS4 (you need the Pro for that) but more intrusive is the lack of consistency in the experience. The series was defined on PS2 by its rock-solid frame-rate, but on the latest iteration – which we highly recommend checking out, by the way – it’s the Pro that delivers the goods.
Improved performance is being delivered by the Pro on key titles and it’s a genuine boon. EA’s Anthem has bespoke modes for the Pro’s 1080p and 4K outputs, but in our tests, the full HD output offered by far the most consistent frame-rate of all four console builds, effectively locked at 1080p, 30 frames per second. Call of Duty Black Op 4’s multiplayer? Again, of all the console builds we tested, the Pro delivered the best performance. Recent Castlevania ‘spiritual sequel’ Bloodstained also hands in easily noticeable frame-rate advantages: a clearly unlocked, variable frame-rate on PS4 has a much tighter lock on 60fps on Pro.