Sony may have taken notice of the fact that its latest upgrade of the PlayStation 4, the PS4 Pro, was not warmly received by gamers as the company projected it to be.
Early this month, Sony has released the beta of the boost mode of the PS4 Pro, and some critics and gamers who were able to try the upgrade say that it is quite a game-changer, although some are also saying not much.
A number of gamers have tested the beta of the PS4 Pro boost mode for its system software 4.5 and so far, the improvement is drawing positive reviews. In fact, many have said that it is the PS4 Pro feature that everyone has been waiting for.
The PS4 Pro boost mode opens up the power of the gaming console to unpatched base PS4 titles. It has been made available to beta users last week to test.
The improvements vary from the dramatic to the inconsequential, but by and large, the end result is a highly valuable feature that many are saying it is going to be appreciated and loved by PS4 Pro owners, reports Eurogamer.
Development limitations
Developers define the performance targets of console software and set the ceiling for in-game frame-rates almost always in the form of a 30fps or 60fps cap. Some can run with an unlocked frame-rate, but v-sync still dictates an eventual 60fps cap.
In short, boost mode will work best in stabilizing performance closer to target frame-rates and should prove interesting on unlocked titles, but gamers should not expect game-changing miracles.
Games like “Destiny” that stick doggedly to its 30fps cap will see no improvement, and titles certainly won’t break their performance limits and suddenly run at 60fps.
However, there are plenty of games out there that glitch badly or run nowhere near their theoretical limits. In such scenario, boost mode could be a revelation.
A performance analysis for “Knack,” a game that runs with an unlocked frame-rate and also happens to have a PS4 Pro patch, was also done by testers. They benched the game running on the PS4 Pro without its patch in base and boost modes and stacked it up against patched performance.
The official PS4 Pro upgrade of “Knack” includes a mode that brings standard 1080p gameplay much closer to 60fps, so it was able to reveal just how much of the PS4 Pro’s ultimate performance boost mode has access to.
Sub-par performance
Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Unity” on PS4 is notorious for its sub-par performance, with even an extensive optimization push only resulting in 22-24 fps frame-rates in NPC-heavy areas.
The upgrade on the PS4 Pro is hugely impressive. The title hits 30fps for the vast majority of the duration with only slight dips beneath the target.
A hugely ambitious console title that lacked the horsepower to deliver a decent experience is finally running as it should and it’s really worth revisiting with the PS4 Pro’s boost mode active.
The beta tests also proved that in graphics-limited tests, the boost mode of the PS4 Pro consistently delivers a 14% increase in frame-rate and critics are saying that it is not a coincidence that the GPU clock speed bump from base to PS4 Pro hardware is 111MHz, which is pretty much exactly 14%.
What is most fascinating about PS4 Pro’s new boost mode is that by disproportionately increasing CPU power vs GPU, it actually seems to be ending up with an improved hardware balance for the base mode.
Sony says that the boost mode of the PS4 Pro has been designed to provide better performance for those legacy titles that have not been patched to take advantage of the PS4 Pro’s faster CPU and its faster and double-sized GPU
It can provide a noticeable frame-rate boost to some games with variable frame-rate and can provide frame-rate stability for games that are programmed to run at 30Hz or 60Hz.