PSSR upscaling works well - and the VRR unlocked frame-rate boosts are satisfying.
So does the PS5 Pro deliver the definitive Last of Us experience?
And exactly how well do the old modes scale on the boosted Pro GPU?
Other visual tweaks appear unchanged.
Relative to the performance mode, there’s a substantial visual improvement.
The biggest improvement is seen on foliage, which looks more natural and clean.
I also prefer the Pro rendition of screen-space reflections.
It’s mild relative to other games we’ve looked at recently, and it’s not overly distracting.
Again, it’s a minor issue.
I also spotted an issue with water flickering very occasionally.
PSSR behaves similarly in both games, so the visual outcomes relative to performance mode are about the same.
I noticed this in Santa Barbara, where the shadows appear to flicker excessively.
I wasn’t able to spot this issue elsewhere though.
Conquering the old native 4K fidelity mode proves a bit tougher for the Pro.
In stills, both machines look comparable enough.
The Pro looks a bit more unstable, but presents smoother edges and more refined foliage.
From a normal viewing distance I think both do a good job of serving a 4K display.
The PS5 performance vs.
Pro mode comparison is also somewhat illuminating.
Sometimes it actually runs slightly slower than the base PS5.
Higher-res post processing and PSSR seem to eat up just about all of the additional performance margin on Pro.
Of course, these are just patches for two older games that may be on old SDKs.
Lastly, I wanted to quickly evaluate PSSR versus FSR and DLSS in The Last of Us Part 1.
PSSR’s noise makes the comparison fairly equal overall.
Plus, PSSR is quite a bit sharper in motion, which is a common feature of PSSR implementations.
DLSS does feel a few steps ahead in terms of image stability.
Even the performance mode scores a superior result here, exhibiting fairly minimal aliasing across a range of content.
The one substantial compromise with DLSS is that image clarity takes a hit in motion relative to PSSR.
Sony’s solution does a good job of maintaining image detail with the camera moving.
Clarity at rest is similar, though, which is when image detail differences are more noticeable.
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PSSR acquits itself fairly well in these games, for a few reasons I think.
The upsampling doesn’t have to contend with noisy undersampled RTGI, or aliased low-res geometry.
But the results are broadly satisfactory in my opinion.
But for now, the PS5-native Last of Us games are delivered in great form on PS5 Pro.
