STACK #241 November 2024

GAMING FEATURE

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The games

The presentation in which the PS5 Pro was unveiled demonstrated just what’s in store for us graphically via a series of side-by side comparisons of many favourite PS5 games, all of which will be improved upon via forthcoming free updates and labelled “PS5 Pro Enhanced”. Some examples include The Last of Us Part II Remastered, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Gran Turismo 7, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (pictured below).

Is it compatible? Yes! If you upgrade, all of your existing PlayStation 5 accessories will work on the PS5 Pro.

The PS5 Pro touches down this month, touted as the most powerful console that the PlayStation boffins have ever created.Those gamers who are looking for the ultimate in console graphics performance are in for a real treat. Words Amy Flower GO PRO!

more detail, and even better lighting effects, all running at faster frame rates than on the standard PS5. There’s more inside! Storage space is king, and great news is that the PS5 Pro packs a 2TB SSD drive – which is double that of the current PS5 Slim, which delivers 1TB of storage. Two more tweaks come in the futureproofing department, with an

upgrade from Wi-Fi 6 capability to Wi Fi 7, and a capability to support 8K resolution video output. Finally, there’s PS5 Pro Game Boost, which may stabilise or improve how some 8,500-plus backward compatible games perform on the new console. On the outside Not surprisingly, the PS5 Pro console itself looks similar to its brethren in the original PS5 and the PS5 Slim, with a four-bar black grille being the main differentiator visually, as well as the lack of a disc drive. Yes, this one comes as digital only as standard, however you can easily attach the separately available PlayStation 5 disc drive (left) to enjoy all the titles in your physical games collection. The PS5 Pro is also noticeably wider than the PS5 Slim, but it’s actually almost exactly the same size as the OG

• The PS5 Pro is out Nov 7

The brief As revealed by the console’s lead architect, Mark Cerny, the key brief for the Pro was to boost the

this is a key to a smoother graphical experience. Next up? Advanced ray tracing – that’s the depictions of reflections and refractions of

performance of the PS5 in the graphics department. It’s an area where it already excels, so what can be added to the mix? Well, most top-tier PS5 games offer players a choice between graphics performance, and graphics fidelity. The former will look nicest, but usually runs at just 30 frames per second. The latter will usually run at 60 frames per second but will dial down on the graphics quality a little to do so. What if these

light sources that add so much realism – and the PS5 Pro can calculate these at double to triple the speed of the

Mark Cerny Lead architect

standard PS5. Rounding the top tech trio out is custom AI-driven hardware known as PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), the brief for which was to boost effective resolution – also known as upscaling - so that it has the ability to make older games, and that includes the PS4 collection, look more detailed onscreen. The ultimate result? Smoother and sharper images, with

limitations were gone? The big three

Enter the PS5 Pro, and what the PlayStation people call “the big three” inside it. The first of these is a larger GPU – graphics processing unit - that packs in 67% more compute units than that in the standard PS5, so it can do its rendering stuff up to 45% faster. Put simply,

PlayStation 5.

10 NOVEMBER 2024

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