Topic: PS4pro | OT

Hey Pushsquare

I'm going to bore you with my thoughts and see if anyone can convince or un-convince me to spend some hard earned $$$ (as I type this at work... lol)

I've currently been spending more and more time playing PS4 and this weekend I explored the idea of upgrading to a Pro and grabbing a flashy new TV. After doing some research on the TV side it seems only just now are TVs hitting the market that present 'HDR' (high dynamic range) and 4K at once. For anyone unaware, my research in layman's terms, has discovered this new 'HDR' technology is all about making 'better' pixels, as opposed the to 1080p to 4k jump which is about 'more' pixels (please tell me if I am mistaken). The problem is, as this tech is relatively new your looking at ~ $2000 for a TV that offers 4k and HDR, which is way beyond my price range.

My question to PushSquare is can anyone provide any experience or knowledge of how games are looking when run on a Pro, with a 4k TV, but on that doesn't include HDR?

Cheers

@bbtothe 4k without HDR really depends on your Screen size and how far away you sit as to how much of an upgrade from 1080p it really is. Games do tend to benefit more than TV/film too but of course there are exceptions to either rule - some games may be difficult to see much improvement and some films could look better too. What is agreed though is that if you really want to get the most from 'just' 4k, screen size is important.

I have a 55" TV and sit around 7-8' away and sometimes, a good HD image can look 'almost' as good as a 4k image - some mid and distant range objects are a bit more sharp and defined - but that's because I was looking for it but often the eye is more focused on the foreground. Obviously if the eye is drawn to the mid range, then the improvements are more noticeable but as I said some scenes may not look significantly better - especially if you don't sit close or have a big screen.

As I said, Games though tend to be more noticeable. Maybe its because they often tend to have a lot more on the screen and more 'fine' lines than real life - its not like we have lines around everything. It also means that Aliasing is less important to hide jaggies too.

That being said, I think it would be foolish not to buy a HDR 4k TV. The difference is significant and not screen size dependent either. HDR is likely to become the 'standard' going forward. SDR was established because of the capabilities of CRT TV's and HDR is the next step. I can't see 'standard' 4k TV's launching and if/when 8K comes along, it will also be HDR.

I know new TV's are expensive but there are a few of 2016 TV's that are still available and relatively cheap. The excellent KS series from Samsung (not the KU as they don't have a lot of the benefits of HDR) can be purchased for around $1k depending on model and screen size. I know that's still a lot of money but I paid nearly £2k for my first HD TV (46" model too - no smart or 3D), Nearly £2k for my first 4k (55" no HDR. HDMI 2.0 only) and nearly £2k for my 55" 4k UHD Premium TV.

The tech will no doubt drop in Price over time - its still a relatively new tech. When I bought 4K, 4K was new in TV's and you couldn't buy one for less than £1.5k, now you can pick up one for less than I paid for my 1080p TV 2-3yrs ago. I would recommend that if you are in the market for a HDR TV, look for the UHD Premium logo. It means it reaches the minimum standards for HDR. Not all brands offer up their TV's for accreditation though so if you wanted 'Sony' you would need to research these models to see which would pass.

Whether you opt to upgrade now or wait, I can't answer. It might be better to wait a year or two and maybe by then, PS5 would be out. I really can't make a case for buying just a 4k TV. I can just about make a case for buying a Pro but for some people, the benefits are not worth the cost. If you do buy a 4k TV without HDR, you really are not gaining much and the future is HDR. I would rather buy a 4k HDR TV now than buy a 4K TV and then feel I need to upgrade in a year or two.

It could still be worth waiting until 2018 as by then, we should have HDMI 2.1, HLG etc. I don't know enough about your situation so can't make that decision for you. All I can say though is that HDR adds a lot more than just 4k does.

In terms of HDR, it is 64x more colours than SDR - so the difference between SDR and HDR is like the difference between 4 colours (cyan/magenta/etc) and 256 colours (skipping 16 colour), at least mathematically speaking.

Obviously it won't be as big a visual difference as 4 colour to 256 because 16 million isn't terrible but that should give you an idea of how big a deal it is.

Thank you both for your input @BAMozzy @Mega-Gazz very much appreciated. I have decided to somewhat go ahead with my plan. I'm picking up a pro 2nd hand today, after I sell my base ps4 it will only be a ~$150 upgrade. I'm holding off on the TV for now but at least ill be ready to go if sales roll around or anything

@bbtothe I bought my 48 inch 4k hdr TV for £400 from Argos.

Played Ratchet and Clank earlier and did a little experiment with hdr.

I turned it off and clank looks a shadow of his former self, looking lifeless.

Turn it on and boom, glowing eyes, shimmering metal. The little dude looks completely different!

It's only a small thing but it makes a big difference when you turn hdr off.

@bbtothe It probably makes sense to upgrade to the Pro first - at least from a purely gaming perspective. The 'benefits' of the extra power are not necessarily dependent on the Screen its connected to. Boost mode can help all those games that haven't or won't be patched to enable the full power of the GPU and as these games will be at 1080p (or less) it really doesn't matter if you don't have a 4k screen

Those that are patched, some have 1080p options - like Rise of the Tomb Raider which has 2 - a high quality 1080p (better shadows, better lighting etc) mode and a high frame rate (unlocked 60fps) mode. The 4k mode will super sample down so you should get a better 1080p image. Games like Nioh, Infamous, the Surge etc offer high frame rate modes - higher than you can play these games on a PS4 - albeit at the same resolution. Games like BF1 also perform better - a higher average frame rate. From what I have read though, not all options are available if you are connected to a 1080p screen. Some games, despite having Pro support, don't supersample (ie just give you a 1080p image no 'better' than the base PS4 - ie same lighting, shadow quality, draw distances etc) and perform 'equally' as well at the 'same' frame rate. The Last Guardian though actually performs better for 1080p TV owners and 4k TV owners have to 'force' the PS4 Pro into 1080p mode to get the 'best' from the game.

Point is though, that from a purely gaming perspective, it makes more sense to upgrade to a Pro first. Upgrading your TV to a 4k HDR TV first isn't necessarily a 'bad' thing to do first either as the base PS4 does offer HDR in some games but you obviously don't get the same visual or frame rate boosts. If you have access to Netflix or Amazon, you can still access 4k HDR content through the smart apps on TV's. Even youtube can show 4k and HDR content with some smart TV apps so you don't 'need' a console for that. However, that is not game related.

Another aspect is pricing. A PS4 Pro is likely to drop in price - especially when Scorpio releases - even if the price gap is large, Sony will just make it larger but maybe not such a drop if the price is much closer. However, the price is unlikely to drop as significantly as 4k HDR TV's will. You can buy a brand new 49" 4k TV for around the same price I paid for a 48" 1080p TV 3yrs ago and around a third-a quarter of the price that 4k TV's were at that time. With HDMI 2.1 due to launch this year, as well as HLG (a form of HDR for broadcasters to offer HDR) and improvements to HDR performance. No TV can match the standards that HDR content is mastered too - even content mastered to 1000nits with TV's capable of delivering that level of brightness. This is down to the colour gamut (palette, range of colours) - often referred to as wide colour gamut or REC2020. Standard Colour Gamut uses the REC709 gamut and all TV's have 100% of this range of colours but no TV (yet) can offer the full REC2020 colour gamut - the UHD Premium certified TV's offer around 75% (+/- 5%). Buying a UHD Premium TV ensures at least a minimum of 1000nits (in LED screens), proper 10bit panels and a certain percentage of this wide colour gamut. Some HDR TV's (not certified) only offer around 250-300nits, 8bit panels and only the REC709 colour palette so you just get a 'slightly' brighter image but none of the benefits of the extra colour range.

Waiting will see the price of UHD Premium TV's drop in price as well as potentially better HDR performance and better features too - like Game VRR and eARC from HDMI 2.1 - not that this will benefit PS4 Pro but almost certainly will benefit PS5.

@BAMozzy Thank you very much again for the in depth coverage!! Glad I upgraded now to wait out some TV sales

A few PS3 indies were updated with enhanced graphics matching the pro release version and they work fine on PS3 lol. Makes you wonder why they didn't initially make the games the way they look currently. xD

@Comrade44 I don't know what you were expecting...

At best, if the game is super-sampled, you will get a slightly better image - better aliasing, less shimmer. However quite a few just output at 1080p but may get a more stable frame rate - The Last Guardian for example. The other aspect is that you may get a higher or more consistent frame rate. Games like the Surge, Infamous and Rise of the Tomb Raider let you play at (up to) 60fps instead of the 30fps the base model plays these. The other aspect may be an improved visual settings - better shadows, better reflections, better draw distances etc - Like Dirt 4 offers. Maybe not 'blatantly' obvious and something you may have to compare with the base model to see these.

Then there is the 'Boost' mode for non-enhanced Games - like Just Cause 3, which in boost mode, plays better - albeit slightly because the 'boost' isn't 'massive' with a 30% boost to CPU and 11% boost to GPU. A 20% boost to something running at 20fps would only give a frame rate of 24fps so its not necessarily going to make games run 'perfectly' but it can improve the performance over the base model. However, if a game runs at a full locked resolution, and locked frame rate on a PS4, if its not enhanced, it will run exactly the same on the Pro.

Games like Tekken though, runs at a full 1080p on Pro and 870ish (I can't remember exactly now but its less than 900p) on PS4 with improved visual settings too so that should be obvious on 1080p TV's but where games run at 1080p, then the Pro version isn't necessarily going to look 'significantly' better but you may notice better aliasing and less shimmer.

The 'big' benefit comes when you connect it up to a 4k HDR Screen - then you see the improved resolution and can make use of the HDR - especially HDR (if you invest in a 'decent' UHD Premium TV otherwise it can look worse). Playing Horizon ZD in 4k HDR is stunning and completely obvious over a 1080p SDR image and both run equally as well so that game won't see 'much' improvement on a 1080p TV - it still looks great though....

@Comrade44 You are wrong. Its only 2.2x as powerful in the GPU. The CPU is around 30% faster and the Ram has a 'slight' bandwidth increase but still only the same RAM allocation which may help with loading and streaming textures a bit. This is why most games only offer a 2x Resolution increase. Games like Horizon (for example) is only rendering 2x1080p but also using 2x1080p pixels from the previous frame to construct a 4k image but technically its only drawing double the pixels.

The Xbox One X though is more than 4x the power of the XB1 and around 3.5x the power of the PS4. Its a whole PS4 better than the PS4 Pro. It also has more RAM allocated for gaming (9GB) than the Pro has RAM and its also 50% higher bandwidth too. Even with all that, its not quite 4x the PS4 so the Pro is obviously not 4x the PS4 either.

Basically, the Pro has 2 PS4 Pro's Bolted together and clocked around 11% faster - so its roughly 2.2x the PS4. The CPU is a bit faster but still the same and RAM has a small increase in Bandwidth too. All Boost mode does though is shut off half the GPU but keeps the same speed. A PS4 GPU is 1.84Tflops, a Pro in Boost mode is 2.1Tflops (not much of an increase is it) and only Pro supported games get to use the full GPU (both sides) so have 4.2Tflops - but as I said this is ONLY for the games that get a Pro patch/support.

So yes you are wrong in thinking its 4x as powerful - its around 2.3x (or 230%) as powerful BUT only with Supported games, otherwise its either identical to a PS4 or if you turn on Boost mode, its around 1.3x (or 30%) faster. To put some perspective on it, the PS4 is around 8x (or 800%) better than a PS3 so the Pro is not that much better but it does use some 'clever' technology (like Checkerboarding and the ability to track objects so it can pull the pixels forward more accurately). All a 'native' resolution means is that 'every' frame is drawn in full so every time you see a tree (for example) its redrawn every frame. All Checkerboarding does is draw 'half' the number of pixels, so saving resources, and pulls some ofthose pixels of the tree forward into the next frame instead of drawing them again and again and again with 'every frame'. By doing this, you still get a full 4k image but only need to use half the render resources - otherwise the iage would be around 1500p and then need stretching (upscaling) to fill the screen.

Its this technique that enables the Pro to punch above its weight. Games that don'y use Checkerboarding are often 1440p but 1800p checkerboarding, whilst giving a bigger and better image, is actually drawing less pixels than the 1440p image. The Pro is essentially a 1440p gaming console but uses clever techniques to deliver a better image quality.

Anyway hope that helps...

@Comrade44 The base PS4 does support HDR but the ONLY TV's with HDR are 4k. Therefore you would still need to buy a 4k TV to benefit from HDR so why not add the resolution too? I have a 4k HDR TV and resolution is far more obvious in gaming than it is in film so 4k Gaming has a much bigger impact than 4k movies. Add in HDR and the difference is much greater than the jump from SD to HD. Maybe 4k alone isn't as big but with HDR its certainly a much bigger jump. Seeing tiny snow crystals glisten, little sparks glowing etc really benefit from the higher resolution. 4k even keeps texture of grass or trees in the background where on 1080p TV's they look more blurred and flat too. Gaming, being drawn, are far more 'detailed' and 'sharper' than film so really do look better in 4k.

$100 extra is definitely worth spending to purchase a Pro. Maybe not so much if you have a PS4 already and only a 1080p screen. All those non-patched games running and loading slightly faster in Boost mode, the opportunity to play more games at 60fps, better anti-aliasing and no shimmer on patched games and new games will be at least 1080p - compared to 900p (or lower) on the PS4 - games like Star Wars:BF, Tekken - even Uncharted 4's MP runs at 900p on PS4 but 1080p on Pro so if your not bothered about frame rates, loading times and a minimum of 1080p moving forwards, then a $100 is maybe not worth it but then don't whinge if new games don't run as well - BF1 for example in MP runs much better on Pro more often at 60fps and often around 10-15fps better on Pro - maybe , the same will be true for Star Wars BF2 as well - higher resolution and frame rate because I doubt that will be 1080/60 but much more likely on Pro. In tests, Boost mode also can improve performance by upto 32% (if it was both CPU and GPU limited) which would make a game running at 40fps, run at 53fps instead - maybe not the full 60fps but still better....

The other thread was closed, not sure why because it's not the same topic. Anyway, thanks to everyone that replied. I had no idea that adding thermal paste to the APU could lower PS4/Pro fan noise. That's quite interesting but a shame that it's not already put in the console. Like some of yours my PS4 sounds like an airplane taking off.

@BlueOcean well it will be but it may be a lower quality paste or it can become brittle through heating up/cooling (and sometimes combined with movement/knocking of the console) you could even slightly separate the connection between heatsink and the chip, not sure how likely that would be though. I think that was the cause of the "red ring of death" issue on the 360s?

Either way a higher quality paste (Arctic Silver 5 was one I used to use back in the day!) should allow better thermal transfer, so the unit doesn't overheat and the fans don't go into overdrive.

Edit: just checked, red ring of death was due to excessive heat on soldered joints, my bad

@kyleforrester87 The excessive heat that also melted the soldered joints was also partly because of the poor 'heat' extraction. It was also the cause of the YLOD on the original PS3 'Phat' - something that happened to mine actually.

To repair either issue, you had disassemble the console and replace the thermal paste with better quality but whilst it was disassembled, also ensure that all the pins were soldered in properly. Rebuilding it would fix the issues - temporarily! It could last another few years before reoccuring but it will inevitably reoccur at some point - and, unless you are an expert at soldering in those pins so small and close to each other, could ruin the console all together. I did see one video using a heat gun to 'soften the solder' to reattach the pins again rather than trying to drop a 'tiny' drop into each pin without it overflowing and touching the next pin. I still have my phat PS3 with YLOD because I am not that confident in my own ability to strip it right down, re-solder any loose pins, clean off and reapply some high quality thermal paste and rebuild the console - but I can't bring myself to sell or throw it away either...

@BAMozzy Yeah soldering isn't something I'm particularly confident with lol. Especially on connections this small. Remelting the existing solder with a gun makes sense, as you say. My original PS3 got YLOD a couple of weeks before moving house and as I have a PS3 slim I decided to just get rid of it. Didn't make sense to move junk to a new home. Kinda wish I'd held on to it to attempt fixing now though.

I just know I'd never find that perfect day to go out and buy a new soldering iron and solder lol.

@kyleforrester87 I haven't had to much of an issue with basic soldering but not those tiny pins with tiny holes that are very close to each other. 1 tiny drop is all that's needed but one slight mistake can screw up the whole thing completely.

Using the heat gun and placing the motherboard on a 'perfectly' flat surface method is no guarantee of success either. You need to keep the heat gun at a decent height - high enough to build the heat up but not close enough to destroy the APU is not easy. You have to keep the heat gun moving in a circular motion around the pins slowly until the solder softens and moves back around the pins and thus reattaching the pins to the circuit board. Its not easy taking the Phat apart either. Literally the whole console is built up around the circuit board so you literally have to disassemble it right back to its core. You can't just take the top or bottom off, unclip the HDD, Bluray drive etc and just lift out the circuit board, you literally have to take everything apart and when you finally get to the Circuit board, its in a metal cage. They really did start with that board and build everything around it...

The 'risks' for me outweighed the rewards. I also wasn't prepared to pay the 2/3rds the cost of a Slim with a bigger HDD for someone else to do the work either - especially as there was no guarantee it would work for weeks let alone years before recurring. I therefore took the decision to replace it rather than repair - especially as I no longer played my PS2 games so I gave them to my Son who still had his PS2. Its why I no longer have any PS2 or earlier Sony games/consoles. It wouldn't have mattered any way as when I moved around 4/5yrs ago, I probably would have thrown them away anyway as my new house is lacking a lot of the space of my former house - no Attic here LOL. I had to make a decision and got rid or gave away virtually everything I owned before the XB360 era - although I did keep my OG Xbox and all my games - mainly because some were playable on the 360. I may be glad I did if these start coming to the BC games on XB1...

Anyway, that's a bit off topic but the point is, I wasn't confident I could repair my PS3. As for the modern Era - I haven't kept a console more than 2-3yrs so far. I replaced my perfectly fine PS4 with a PS4 Pro and the PS4 replaced my Slim PS3 which wasn't more than a few years old either. I replaced my original XB360, with an Elite (so never suffered the RROD) and then replaced the Elite with a Slim and Kinect a few years before buying the XB1 which was replaced by my Gears 4 XB1s and that will be replaced a year later by the XB1X.... My Gears 4 XB1s though will go to the bedroom for 4k HDR content more than gaming but so far I haven't had issues with heat or wear and tear of the consoles probably because they get replaced quite frequently...

Really ought to sell a few and get some money back. I don't need a spare for a spare... LOL

@BlueOcean The other one was closed because there is this thread to discuss anything about the PS4 Pro. Unfortunately we don't have a system to merge similar threads and having similar threads splintered across the forums just ends up making the forums cluttered and unorganized.

Thanks for understanding

@kyleforrester87 Hey. To be honest I can't imagine myself soldering anything either. I have my PS4 with good air circulation and the fan noise it's the same since I bought it in 2014, the fan doesn't seem to be dirty. I have heard of people using a hoover for cleaning the fans from the outside instead of opening the console like other people and that's what I do with my console and A/V receiver. Does anyone here open the console for cleaning the fan?

@BAMozzy Some kind of backwards compatibility on PS4 would have come handy, huh? One of the best features of the Xbox One which I also have.

Is the PS4 Slim noisy as PS4 and Pro? Does it make the start-up beep sound too? I'm not sure that I'd ever buy a Slim, just curious.

@BlueOcean Yup it's very easy to open the PS4 to clean the dust. 5 minute job, check it out on YouTube. Would recommend doing it as general maintenance.