That update that CD Projekt Red initially said it wouldn't release is now available to download. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's latest patch adds PS4 Pro support, providing a lovely boost in resolution if you're playing the game on Sony's supercharged system. Digital Foundry reports that the difference in image quality is reasonably impressive. As we've come to expect, the title doesn't run in native 4K, but it uses a bunch of different methods to "create a respectable illusion" of the full resolution. Not bad at all.
There's a slight problem, however. In some areas of the map, the publication says that the framerate has actually gotten worse, which is frustrating given that the game's last few patches before this one had it running smoother than ever.
"It doesn't affect the game at large, and PS4 Pro operates at 30fps for the most part. However stress areas involving heavy alpha effects run worse on PS4 Pro by an obvious delta," Digital Foundry states. "Taking our Crookback Bog test as an example, we're looking at a divide up to five frames per second - that's 25fps versus the 30fps we get on a base PS4. Running through alpha-heavy marshes at speed, PS4 Pro clearly struggles to resolve double the pixel output of a regular PS4 with these effects overlayed. The net result is a consistent gap, and even arriving to the town at the centre, it continues to run at around 25fps."
As reported, this isn't an issue most of the time, but it's a disappointing drawback all the same. It's ultimately a shame that Pro users are now stuck with this; we've said it before, but some kind of option to disable Pro support would be nice -- especially when you've got games like Skyrim running at a much higher resolution at the cost of very noticeable framerate drops in some areas.
"Overall then, it's fair to count The Witcher 3's PS4 Pro support as a success. Yes, performance isn't improved across the board, but there's a lot to enjoy here: visuals are upgraded, and ultra HDTV owners are getting a great image from the machine," the publication concludes.
What do you make of this one, then? Do you think CD Projekt Red should have bothered after all? Will you be playing the game again on a 4K display? Try not to drop any frames in the comments section below.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 18
This is the problem when doing nice things for free - always come back to bite you on the backside. Seriously though, I am going to get this next year and play on the Pro. Looking forward to the 4K version.
At the end of the day it's a few frames in a game that doesn't have particularly great controller response to begin with. The improved resolution makes a much bigger difference than I was anticipating.
Do i have to change any type of settings in game or on my tv? Because honestly i don't see much of a difference, maybe because i been playing a lot of horizon zero dawn lately? Idk. And yes i do have a top of the line hdr 4k tv and ps4pro
I thought they at least improved the loading times... but no. Guess we can’t have nice things after all.
Will the frames also drop with a Pro on a 1080p screen?
@MadAussieBloke
For games that have received a pro patch, boost mode doesn't do anything anymore, even when set to 1080p.
It only works for games that never got updated with a pro patch.
@meppi was just about to mention this, its actually in the video, it shows 1080p running the same mid 20s fps as 4k, because it basically is the same just down sampled. It would be nice to have a pure 1080p switch though in the game menu.
@Useyourname Yes, according to the video.
Lets be honest here - its really the pushing the GPU to the max. Its not as if the GPU is that 'powerful' - certainly not by PC standards and an RX480 - which is more powerful - is regarded as a decent 1440p GPU.
Its still doubling the resolution from double the power. Obviously, as we have seen from a lot of games so far, that the CB rendering, the tracking of the objects in the previous frame and pulling those forward uses more resources that just 'doubling' the pixel count alone would do. The 'dropped' frames in performance though come at the more CPU intensive areas and with only a 30% boost in speed, its here that the bottlenecking occurs. Fortunately its mostly cut scenes and areas of high alpha effects and object counts. Maybe CDPR could resolve this by dialling back the Anisotropic Filtering and Ambient Occlusion back to 'base' hardware levels or maybe bring in some 'Dynamic Scaling'.
The fact a game like this has reached 4k on this hardware - the same resolution as Horizon:Zero Dawn is impressive. I was expecting just a 1440p mode - like Uncharted games.
@MadAussieBloke The Witcher 3 was made in 4k with high res textures etc for PC's. In fact I can't think of a major game in the last 4yrs that couldn't run in 4k (if your PC had the hardware to cope). Point is, Devs are well experienced in building 4k games so don't 'have to find their feet'
That being said, they are still finding their feet with trying new methods to get a higher PQ with limited hardware. Temporal Filtering (or Checkerboard rendering) is 'new'. Ubisoft I believe are the only Publisher to offer Temporal Filtering in their games on PC and pioneering its use - although Guerrilla Games used it for Killzone Shadowfall first. Rainbow Six Seige was their 'first' big game to use it - mainly because the consoles were to weak to run the game at native 1080p and 60fps. Since then, others have used that method but mostly just on consoles.
For the likes of CDPR, CB rendering is 'new' even if 4k itself is old. I believe the Witcher 3 can be played in 8k (yes 8k!!!) on PC but on PC's you only have 'Native' resolutions. There is no CB solution to give a higher resolution. This was probably their very first attempt at checkerboard rendering to deliver a much more significant boost than the hardware could deliver if they went the 'native' route.
If/When Sony do bring a PS5 to market, it should be a lot easier for developers - not because they should be more used to making games in 4k - something they have been doing for MANY years but the extra power that should bring would make it easier to port their game across and 'optimise' for that console. Chances are that fewer games will be using CB methods and/or upscaling although by then, more devs will be 'experienced' in using CB rendering.
The issue isn't that devs don't have 4k experience - what they lack though is experience on trying to get 4k with 'limited' hardware. For them, they just run it at 4k on their 'beast' of a PC and it runs perfectly well at full 4k. Trying to get that though from a 'measily' (by comparison) PS4 Pro is much more of a challenge and probably won't be so much of an issue with a Console built for 4k.
Heh, I am really tempted! But I have to play FF9, Yakuza: Kiwami, Pillars of Eternity and MGSV ç_ç then I owe it to myself to play Horizon Zero Down when the new version gets released and the start of the new year will be insane with SFV, Monster Hunter World and Ninokuni 2...it's overwhelming really, I already trimmed down my playlist to just games that I absolutely want to play . I wanted to get a Switch for Mario Odyssey but I guess I'll wait for the Switch slim or New Switch ...I seriously wouldn't have the time to do everything.
Thank you CD Projectk for supporting PS4 pro gamers. We salute and love ya!!
@Feena Im running 2 years behind lol i cant keep up with the games anymore. 😀 😁
@BAMozzy Very usefull now we just need a 8K screen.
I'd've preferred having options, of course. Who knew!
Imagine an option that keeps the graphics the same but stabilizes the framerate to a rock solid 30 while increasing draw distance?
Just bought a pro and need to do the DLC
@Flaming_Kaiser Not necessarily - you can still benefit from supersampling that down to a 4k screen. Titanfall 2 hits 6k in places on the Xbox One X (according to devs) and when this (and any resolution above 4k) happens, it will be super-sampled down to 4k.
Its the same principal as PS4 Pro or XB1X owners with 1080p TV's will get with this game. The benefits are a better than native 1080p can offer.
8k screens do exist and 8k monitors can be bought. I believe Dell have a 32" 8K monitor for ~£3.8k This one from Misco
Believe it or not, most smartphones and tablets these days have much higher PPI (thats Pixels per inch) than a 4K TV and Sony have made a 4k (yes 4k) HDR mobile with an incredible 806ppi - a 55" 4k TV has around 80ppi. Apples retina displays are around 250-300ppi.
This is a welcome update! With the arrival of the X we should see more support across the board
I'm currently playing this on my Sony 4K TV and the difference is not much. 2nd not complaining since it's a free update but just thought I would put it out there this Pro update doesn't come close to a game like Horizon.
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