To what extent do legacy PS4 games improve on a 4K screen?
With that in mind, we set out to find out.
What exactly does the ‘enhance image quality’ feature actually do?
Is this a game changer for PS5 Pro, or more of an incremental improvement?
A close look at fine details reveals a sharper image with the enhanced mode enabled.
Edges that used to have obvious sawtooth aliasing artifacts appear less jagged, but simultaneously have sharper edges.
However, aliasing patterns can remain, just masked slightly.
Everything seen here indicates that it’s the same basic game content, running at the same resolution.
It’s not going to be a perfect replacement for 4K art, generally speaking.
It’s also important to recognize the technique’s limitations.
The biggest problem with enhanced mode is that it really doesn’t do much for temporal aliasing.
The PS5 Pro claims the enhanced mode is selective - so what games does it apply to?
In my testing, it seems like it doesn’t apply to PS4 software that outputs above 1080p resolution.
Overwatch 2, which renders at 1080p internally but has a 4K UI.
Likewise for Marvel’s Spider-Man, which uses a temporal upscaling technique to hit a 4K resolution.
However, some PS4 Pro-enabled software like Rage 2 is visibly changed by the PS5 Pro enhancement process.
Again, games that are higher res do not seem to get a bump.
Games with TAA tended to have a more muted visual change relative to games that used post-process AA.
Outside of image quality, I was interested in the cost of the technique.
It’s enough to bring the base PS5 and enhanced PS5 Pro to a virtual performance tie.
c’mon enable JavaScript to use our comparison tools.
That inner surface detail appears more pleasing, not just geometric detail.
This is an area where LS1 appears substantially better than the Pro.
The Pro’s enhancement process is comparable to LS1 on text and 2D elements.
For instance, Sony’s solution has greater difficulty differentiating this line from the background than LS1.
However, it does incur a one-frame latency penalty.
That said, the image looks perceptibly cleaner and texture detail is enhanced.
Its reconstruction of text detail in particular doesn’t seem realistically feasible using hand-authored algorithms.
It improves image detail and clarity somewhat, but temporal consistency is about the same as before.
It’s also not quite at the bleeding edge of smart spatial upscalers.
Perhaps in time Sony can come up with something similar.
