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Sony is rolling out new tools for devs which will potentially make the base PS5 experience better for everyone, as the console approaches its sixth anniversary.
As exclusively revealed by our friends at Digital Foundry, the new QSSR – or Quick Spectral Super Resolution – is a “refined” version of the acclaimed PSSR found on the PS5 Pro.
For those who don’t know, PSSR – or PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution – is an AI-based technology that in essence allows devs to reduce computational overhead by rendering their games at a lower resolution which can then be upscaled with minimal image quality compromises.
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In its original guise, the proprietary solution – which functions similarly to Nvidia’s industry-leading DLSS – exhibited some drawbacks, but it was refined earlier this year with the massively updated PSSR2, which has been producing great results across both first-party and third-party titles.
QSSR is not the full-fledged PSSR experience – PS5 Pro includes silicon expressly assigned to machine learning – but the long-and-short here is that there’s “remarkable” potential for devs to massively improve the way their base PS5 games look and run.
Digital Foundry reports via a hands-on that support is currently only available in Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei, although the tools will be made available for all devs to implement should they choose. Both games will be updated today to support the tech, as confirmed on the PS Blog.
There’s no word just yet on whether Rockstar will be adopting it for GTA 6, but the technology will be there for the UK studio to adopt.
While it’s only been able to test two titles so far, Digital Foundry says the quality boost in Marvel’s Wolverine specifically can be “exceptional”.
Ghost of Yotei – the only other title currently available – benefits less, largely because it already has outstanding image quality on base PS5 hardware.
I’ll leave all of the nerdy numbers for you to sift through in the tech experts’ analysis through here, but Digital Foundry reckons there’s scope for QSSR to match the speed of the more commonly used FSR 3 upscaler, which could result in some humongous image quality gains for the base PS5. More testing will be required on this, of course.
It should be noted that those of you with a PS5 Pro shouldn’t feel shortchanged: Sony’s supercharged system is still a much faster, more powerful machine so will continue to have an advantage over its lower-specced sibling.
“It's great to be improving the PS5 this far into the generation, enabling developers to make even better-looking games,” Daniel Craig, a Sony graphics engineer (not 007!) told Digital Foundry.
“The reality is that the PS5 Pro has 300 TOPS of dedicated hardware for this purpose and is free to pick a much more generous spot on that cost-versus-quality curve.”
So after a tough few months for PlayStation, where it’s been lambasted for taking its eye off the ball and failing to deliver any real improvements to its players, the surprise introduction of QSSR to base PS5 hardware could result in very meaningful improvements moving forwards.