u/Jealous-Craft-2717

Just wanted to share a clip of me messing around. Reddit’s compression honestly kills the quality, but trust me, the new PSSR 2.0 update is night and day.

That weird over-sharpening and the jagged edges we had with the 1.0 slider are completely gone. It’s finally crystal clear now.

Also the lighting transitions are way smoother when moving between dark and bright areas, and visibility in shadows is much better on my high-luminance display.
I've tested a few maps now and the optimization is just top notch. Loving this patch so far.

What do you guys think of the update?

After spending several hours with the latest update I wanted to share some in depth observations with the community. I do these analyses because I am a total graphics enthusiast and I love seeing how far we can push the BlackSpace Engine. This is not meant to be a negative critique. In fact I want to start by giving a massive shout out to the developers. The speed and sheer volume of optimizations and quality of life updates they are delivering is something many other studios should look up to. It is truly impressive.

Shadow LOD and Asset Streaming
There is a noticeable silent fix regarding shadow draw distance in this patch. Testing around the Farm of Hernand you can clearly see that the high resolution shadow cascades have been pushed further back. Previously the transition where shadows became muddy or popped in was quite close to the character. Now that boundary has been extended a good amount which makes the world feel much more stable and immersive during traversal. Seeing objects like trees and fences hold their shadow detail from further away is a big win for the PS5 Pro experience.

Night Tone Mode for High Luminance Displays
The new Night Tone Mode is an essential feature if you are using a High Luminance display whether it is a high end Mini LED, an OLED or a high contrast VA panel. It directly addresses the Black Crush issues many of us noticed. By preventing dark areas from simply falling into pure black it preserves the detail and plasticity of assets like rock walls and ground textures even after the sun goes down. It stops the image from looking flat or muddy in tricky lighting which really helps the world feel more three dimensional.

Shader Stability and POM
Something that might go unnoticed but felt huge to me is that the flickering caused by Parallax Occlusion Mapping seems to be resolved. I checked multiple scenarios like indirect lighting and post rain surfaces and that distracting shimmering on textures is virtually gone. It is clear they have put significant work into shader execution here.

Performance vs Balance Mode
I want to be clear that the Balance Mode still looks fuller in terms of raw assets and texture resolution. It is definitely the superior choice if you want the absolute maximum graphical detail. However for the best overall experience I find myself leaning more and more toward the Performance Mode. With the new tonemapping and PSSR the Performance Mode has gained a lot of visual weight and does not feel washed out anymore. Combined with the higher frame rate and more stable LODs it is currently my personal way to go to enjoy the game. Long term I hope they can bring this level of stability to the Balance Mode vegetation and VRR range as well.

Future Hopes
The game is not perfect yet but it is getting closer with every update. The internal Denoiser still has some trouble with Ray Tracing noise. You will still see some flickering when using the lantern in dark rooms or around waterfall edges. Also the CPU load in dense areas remains the biggest challenge for keeping a stable VRR experience. If Pearl Abyss can eventually streamline the background logic to offload the CPU this game will be an absolute technical masterpiece.

Quick Summary TL;DR
The developers are doing an incredible job and the game feels better than ever. The improved shadow distance and the new Night Tone Mode make a massive difference for anyone on a high end screen. While Balance Mode is still the king of raw detail Performance Mode is becoming the most well rounded way to play thanks to the improved lighting and shader fixes. We still have some Denoiser noise and CPU fluctuations in cities but the direction the team is taking is world class.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion because whenever I see recommendations for the PS5 Pro, people only talk about OLED TVs like the LG C5 or G5. Hardly anyone talks about high end monitors and I feel like people are sleeping on the actual benefits.
I am in a position where I have both worlds at home: a massive 85 inch TCL Q8C Mini LED and a KTC M27P6 monitor with 1152 dimming zones.
I have always been a die hard TV fan but since getting the Pro, I am playing exclusively on the monitor. Even for cinematic games like Crimson Desert, Saros or stuff like Battlefield, the TV stays off and is now only used for movies.
The thing that blew me away most is how insane the HDR feels on the monitor.

Even though my TV has more nits on paper, having 1152 zones packed into just 27 inches creates a level of precision that is hard to describe. The black levels feel almost like an OLED because the zones are so small, but you get that massive Mini LED punch that makes highlights really pop without the blooming you see on big screens.
The pixel density makes the image look so much sharper and cleaner than on the huge 85 inch screen. The Fast IPS panel also makes the handling feel incredibly snappy and direct.

There is a responsiveness that even the best Game Mode on a TV just cannot match. Because I sit closer to the monitor, the field of view is pretty much the same as sitting on the couch in front of the 85 inch, so I do not feel like I am losing any immersion at all.
I am curious to see how everyone else is set up. Do you think monitors are underrated for the Pro or is the couch and a massive OLED still the only way for you? Is anyone else rocking a high end Mini LED setup or is it OLED only for this sub?

TL;DR: Switched from a high end 85 inch Mini LED TV to a 27 inch 1152 zone Mini LED monitor for my PS5 Pro. The pixel density, insane HDR precision and faster response times make it a much better experience for gaming than the big screen. Curious if others prefer monitors over the typical OLED TV recommendations.

Let me know what you think!

I want to start by saying that I completely reworked my previous analysis. My initial information regarding LFC was incorrect, so I took the time to re-test everything and look at the technical facts again. There is a lot of half knowledge circulating right now regarding the supposedly holy grail of settings for Crimson Desert. Many people are claiming that forcing your PS5 Pro to 1440p output while disabling Fixed 4K in the game menu is the ultimate way to get high frame rates in Quality Mode. After extensive testing I have to say that this is largely a visual illusion that sacrifices the actual image integrity for an unstable frame rate.

What is actually happening under the hood
Normally modern console games ignore the system output resolution for their internal rendering. However Crimson Desert has a unique Fixed 4K toggle. If you disable this and set your PS5 Pro to 1440p you are essentially allowing the game to drop its internal resolution target. By dropping the 4K requirement you are freeing up GPU resources which causes the internal 30 FPS limiter to become unstable and unlock. While your VRR monitor will show higher numbers this does not mean the game is running optimized. You are simply seeing the raw and unpolished performance of the engine that was never intended for this specific preset.

The destruction of image quality
The real cost of this workaround is the destruction of the image through broken scaling. Pearl Abyss built the Quality Mode for a high end presentation with significantly higher graphical settings. PSSR is designed to reconstruct an image to a 4K target. When you force a 1440p output while the engine is in this bugged unlocked state the scaling logic fails to resolve fine details correctly. This results in the massive shimmering and unstable edges you can see in my comparison photos. The textures often appear flat and muddy because the ambient occlusion and fine shadows do not resolve properly at this broken resolution. PSSR tries to sharpen a base that is constantly shifting which leads to an over sharpened and noisy look that ruins the high end assets.

Performance Mode is still the better path
In my testing the Performance Mode is still the superior choice for anyone who cares about image consistency. It actually provides about 2 to 4 FPS more in CPU intensive areas like Hernand compared to this bugged Quality Mode setup. More importantly the Performance Mode offers a much cleaner and sharper image because it follows the intended scaling path of the developers without breaking the internal logic. You get a professional looking image that holds its detail instead of a shimmering mess that relies on an artificial sharpness filter.

Conclusion
Using this 1440p workaround might give you a slightly more responsive feel but you are trading away the visual clarity and stability that the Pro is actually capable of. You are looking at a broken signal that negates the whole point of Quality settings. I would rather have a clean stable image in Performance Mode than a noisy mess that tricks your eyes with an unlocked but unstable frame rate.
Edit: Make sure to zoom into the images to get a clearer look at the artifacts and the massive difference in texture detail.

Nach der heutigen Veröffentlichung von Patch 1.05.00 habe ich eine weitere umfassende technische Bewertung der PS5 Pro durchgeführt. Da meine Analysen in dieser Community erheblich an Bedeutung gewonnen haben, möchte ich einen detaillierten Einblick in den aktuellen Zustand des Spiels geben. Trotz der beeindruckenden Inhaltsupdates und der lobenswerten Verbesserungen der Lebensqualität, die von Pearl Abyss bereitgestellt wurden, bleibt der technische Zustand in Bezug auf Bildstabilität und Leistung ein großes Streitpunkt. Es ist frustrierend zu sehen, wie die immense visuelle Pracht des Spiels durch zugrunde liegende Softwareprobleme getrübt wird.
Ein zentraler Kritikpunkt bleibt die Implementierung von Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM) in Verbindung mit PSSR Upscaling. Das POM, das dazu gedacht ist, Oberflächen plastische Tiefe zu verleihen, ist in diesem Build anfällig für extremes Flimmern und Aliasing-Artefakte. Besonders wenn die Kamera tief hinter dem Charakter positioniert wird, wie ich es bevorzuge, führt dieser steile Betrachtungswinkel zu massiven Bildstörungen, die sich in Patch 1.05.00 aggressiver anfühlen als zuvor. Diese Instabilität erstreckt sich auf die Wolkenformationen, die während der Kamerabewegung auffälliges Flimmern zeigen, und erreicht einen Tiefpunkt in dunklen Innenräumen. Sobald die dynamische Lichtquelle der Laterne genutzt wird, erzeugt der Denoiser in Kombination mit ray traced Schatten erhebliche Artefakt-Vorhänge und Geisterbilder, was die Immersion stark beeinträchtigt. Darüber hinaus zeigt der shader-gesteuerte Schaum an Wasserfällen weiterhin unruhiges Bildrauschen, was darauf hinweist, dass die zeitliche Rekonstruktion immer noch nicht harmonisch mit den Denoising-Pässen funktioniert.
In Bezug auf die Leistung bleibt die Situation auf der PS5 Pro kompliziert. Ich habe sowohl den Performance- als auch den Balanced-Modus ausführlich getestet und muss feststellen, dass der Balanced-Modus derzeit keine praktikable Option für mich ist. Selbst außerhalb von Hernand leidet dieser Modus unter zu vielen Schwankungen und bietet kein konsistentes Spielerlebnis. Im direkten Vergleich bietet der Performance-Modus eine deutlich stabilere und flüssigere Darstellung in kleineren Dörfern und Siedlungen mit niedrigerer NPC-Dichte, was die grafischen Kompromisse im Vergleich zum Balanced-Modus mehr als ausgleicht. Es muss jedoch angemerkt werden, dass in großen Knotenpunkten wie Hernand der CPU-Flaschenhals der Konsole so stark zuschlägt, dass alle Modi regelmäßig unter den effektiven VRR-Bereich fallen. Um dem entgegenzuwirken und dem System etwas mehr Spielraum für das Frame-Pacing zu geben, empfehle ich dringend, den Performance-Modus zu verwenden und die Qualität der Partikeleffekte manuell auf 45 zu reduzieren. Da das Spiel von Natur aus eine extrem hohe Partikeldichte aufweist, bleibt die visuelle Wirkung erhalten, während die allgemeine Stabilität einen leichten, aber notwendigen Schub erhält.
Zusätzlich bleibt das aggressive Level of Detail (LOD)-System eine Baustelle. Das sichtbare Pop-in von Asset-Geometrie und das Wechseln von Schattenkaskaden treten oft viel zu nah am Spieler auf, was bei der hochbandbreitenden SSD der Pro vermeidbar sein sollte. Beim schnellen Reisen durch die Welt ist das Textur-Pop-in allgegenwärtig. Ich habe großen Respekt vor der Arbeit der Entwickler und dem schieren Umfang der Inhalte, die sie liefern, aber diese technischen Inkonsistenzen in der Synergie zwischen PSSR, POM und LOD-Streame benötigen dringend eine grundlegende Überarbeitung. Es ist schade, wenn ein technisches Wunderwerk wie dieses in seiner Wirkung durch vermeidbare Bildfehler und CPU-Flaschenhälse eingeschränkt wird. Ich hoffe aufrichtig, dass zukünftige Patches ein besseres Gleichgewicht zwischen grafischer Opulenz und technischer Verfeinerung finden werden.

Hey everyone,

Now that the PSSR 2.0 update for the Pro is out and titles like Resident Evil Requiem or Crimson Desert are showing what that 100-microsecond-per-frame saving (per Cerny) actually does, Im starting to wonder: how much further can they push this hardware?

Mark Cerny was surprisingly open in that recent Digital Foundry interview about the collaboration with AMD on “Project Amethyst.” It’s no secret that they’ve basically been co-developing FSR tech, but he finally confirmed that Frame Generation for “PlayStation platforms” is a concrete roadmap goal.

The interesting part is that the Pro technically has enough AI overhead with those 300 TOPS (INT8) to pull it off. The big question is whether Sony actually drops this for the current mid-gen or if they’re sandbagging it as a “killer feature” for the PS6. Cerny mentioned that no more major feature releases are planned for the rest of 2026, but he also said the ML libraries available to devs are constantly expanding.

What I’m stuck on though—and this is the real sticking point—is the CPU limit. Even if we get Multi-Frame Generation, how do we get around the Zen 2 architecture? If a game like GTA 6 absolutely toasts the CPU and we’re stuck with 30 FPS base frames, AI frame interpolation might give us that 60 FPS "look," but won't the actual gameplay feel just as sluggish as before?

Do you guys think Sony can tighten the latency through that deep PSSR hardware integration enough that generated frames don’t just feel like "input lag hell"? Or is the Pro ultimately just a test lab to perfect these AI models in time for the PS6 launch?

Really curious to hear your take—do you see the Pro as a long-term investment into an AI-driven future, or just a fancy stopgap?