This is what many have been waiting for: cold, hard numbers. Firmware 4.50's PS4 Pro 'Boost Mode' was uncovered by beta testers last week, with users claiming that it improves a number of titles that haven't received a specific Pro patch. Before long, videos were being shared around the web, showing clear performance enhancements in games such as Bloodborne and Assassin's Creed Unity.
And now, Digital Foundry has decided to weigh in with its technical expertise, analysing a number of titles in the video that we've embedded above. The publication takes a good look at a bunch of games that launched before the Pro, including Knack - without its Pro patch, obviously - the aforementioned Assassin's Creed Unity, Killzone: Shadow Fall, and Battlefield 4.
All in all, Digital Foundry's very happy with what they find. In simple terms, Boost Mode allows these games to take advantage of the Pro's extra power, giving way to benefits such as better frame rates, reduced load times, and better texture pop-in. In some cases, frame rates are rather dramatically improved; in Battlefield 4's multiplayer, for example, Boost Mode keeps the shooter running at an almost perfect 60 frames per second.
Are you looking forward to trying Boost Mode when the update launches proper? Count some frames in the comments section below.
Comments 40
Stop hogging all the fun beta testers.
As i see there is mostly few frames adventage over base mode, doesn't looks like a "game changer" to me. And certainly not worthing 150 euros difference
Missed my beta invite that was sent to me Monday ! Currently downloading atm might have to move bloodborne onto my pro now!
Yes can't wait!
@99miki No one ever said it was going to be a game changer; remember these games are completely unpatched.
It seems that the GPU is still halved but all the components (GPU, CPU and RAM) all retain their speed/bandwidth of the full Pro mode.
How anyone can say that 14-38% boost in performance isn't worth it, I will never know. I would MUCH prefer to play games at 60fps with maybe a slight drop here and there to one thats running at 45fps on average. I would much prefer not to have screen tear or texture pop-in than have to put up with it! It seems that almost 'every' PS4 game with unlocked frame rates are showing some improvements - AC:Unity actually looks 'playable' now on Console!
So not only do the majority of PS4 games play better than on the base model, a number actually look better (thanks to Pro enhancements) and that is only going to increase as more games release. Its no longer just those few games that are improved!
I'm liking the boost mode and have been playing around with it for a couple of days, it's given me a reason to revisit a few games I may not have done such as the Witcher where I still have the dlc to play 😃. It's obviously not as much as if they had actual Pro patches and by and large is most beneficial to those games which never hit their intended fps targets. However any additional use of the console is welcome and now I'm back on Yakuza 0 with the screen tearing all but eliminated. I may even buy Project Cars in the sale as that game looks transformed by the Pro.
Ultimately this in itself isn't a reason to buy the Pro, it is however a welcome addition to this mid gen upgrade that is starting to come into its own
So 14% Gpu bump, 30% Cpu bump, faster loading times because of unpacking textures faster.
Hats off, Sony
I don't understand, if this 'Boost mode' was in the pipeline why this wasn't added as standard to all PS4 pro's before they shipped. Why is it a mode that is togglable unless it has a downside. Does it reduce the life of the machine or something? Surely if this is so good it should be permanently inplemented into the next firmware update not an option that is turned on or off. What's the catch?
@BAMozzy Definitely. Oh, and not only Assassin's Creed Unity slightly improves in boost mode but Bloodborne as well, with loading times taking 7-8 seconds than 10-16 seconds.
@TomKongPhooey There are a few games that downright crash when Boost mode is enabled. I'm guessing it was considered an afterthought, and probably needed some more time to complete. I think if it would've been ready at launch we would've heard about it nonstop, seen it on bags of Doritos, and had a new flavor of Mountain Dew created. Probably a half naked Terry Crews commercial too.
@RedMageLanakyn Ah right. I hadn't heard about any of the games crashing. All the news seems to be that it's so good that we should be running out and buying a pro asap lol. I haven't watched the video above by the way. I was just throwing the thought out there as it occured to me. Cheers
I remember them saying that they wouldn't be patching in higher framerates in MP as that would provide an unfair advantage. And yet here we are! As a Pro owner... I'm okay with this. But I could see how base owners would be upset.
That said, I barely play MP anyway, so I'm STOKED about Boost Mode. My digital backlog includes games like Bloodborne, The Witcher 3, etc., so now I'm actually glad I've waited to play them!
@get2sammyb In every Pro article there's at least one or two salty fellas, "It's still not worth it! It's more expensive! I'm not convinced!" as if the Pro is a mandatory purchase that they're rebelling against. To me it sounds like they're just trying to convince themselves more than anything.
That new Razer controller looks pretty sweet as well, no one is telling us we HAVE to get it over the stock controller. But for those who care, it's an available option.
These blokes seem to be taking the Pro's existence as a personal attack on them or something. Haha
@glassmusic I kinda understand that no one wants to be left behind, but the Pro has been very specifically designed to enhance games that are built with the standard PS4 in mind. I still don't think some realise this; the whole design philosophy of the console is to boost games that are already being tailor-made for PS4.
In other words, you either care for the improvements or you don't. I personally appreciate all the bonuses that PS4 Pro affords me, but I also understand that I'm a very specific type of user.
It is pretty great, but much like backwards compatibility it's a feature that I think people like the idea of but may not actually benefit from, simply due to the fact that how often do we really go back and play our old games? And if we do, it's usually games we enjoyed the first time round, and we probably enjoyed them party because they ran fine anyway. Not saying it's not going to be a nice boost for certain people mind you, but since most new games will be patched for the Pro anyway I don't see this making a huge impact overall.
Maybe it's not game changer but believe me for example witcher 3 and just cause 3 are much more enjoyable. If I should recommend PS4 it will be definitely pro version. Boost mode is something I hoped for from the beginning. With it pro makes finally sense.
@99miki bigger HDD, new controller packed in, better graphics with less aliasing, better suited for psvr, quieter, looks great and now has a few frames advantage over ps4 scrubs.
Buy one and trade in your old ps4 with a few unused games to cover most of the cost.
And thats just it, you either like it or you dont.
Personally, load times have never bothered me.
Waiting 15 seconds isnt a big deal to me, and dropping that to 10 isnt anything I would consider a huge increase.
If you like that cool, more power to you.
I play games at under 60fps and am happy with that, and core gameplay is more important to me than how pretty it looks or that it loads 3 seconds faster.
Just my personal opinion.
The cost isnt nearly worth those minor inprovements.
This actually made me order a Pro. It'll be here on Friday. Can't wait to play some more EDF 4.1 with less tearing.
Combined with the quicker load times from the external HDD, this firmware beta has been a major success IMO.
@glassmusic That is what I noticed too, Sony were pretty adamant people playing on the Pro would not be given an advantage in multiplayer games, but here we are. I'm not on Plus anymore so it isn't a big thing to me, but I might have felt differently if I had been doing mulltiplayer still and I'm sure it will not go down well with some. As anyone who plays online on the PC will tell you, you prioritise framerate above all else, but with no scaling on the PS4 this isn't an option and will give an advantage to Pro users.
@get2sammyb it's like the hardware equivalent of collecting a POWER-UP but even better coz its permanent.
Hey if you buy this new console the games you already bought will work properly!
Except for some of them, which will be worse.
Sound's great, still some salt in here I see pou should bite the bullet and upgrade it's clearly worth it now, Ark run's 10x better on the Pro than the old model as well. I think Sony didn't include this when the Pro launched because it would of further divided their user base so they put it in a few month's after the Pro come's out so people who don't want to upgrade didn't get to salty on the Pro's launch, sneaky. I expect there will be more update's like this in ze future.
Its hardly an advantage - its not like the games that run at 30 are suddenly running at 60 in MP games. Its not changing the cap. Battlefield 4 is a 60fps game and on Pro boost mode it will run much closer to 60fps much more of the the time (if not virtually locked) on PS4, the game can still run at 60fps too.
Having spent £350 on an upgraded console and find it only benefits a handful of games is disappointing. Having a library of games with frame rate drops, screen tear, texture pop-in etc and having a more console doing absolutely nothing to improve that experience is hardly a 'Pro' console.
You wouldn't go out and buy a GTX1070 (similar price) and want it to be nerfed with your library, play games like a GTX970 apart from a 'few' that are 'patched' to take advantage of the extra performance the 1070 offers.
It seems that a few 'Indie' games don't work with the boost mode - games like Soma and Broforce. The Frostbite games though work well as do those using Unreal engines.
Nice to know that it's making a difference and that Sony are committed to improving the Pro's offerings. Definitely tempted to get one when I eventually upgrade to a 4k TV, but that's probably a ways off yet.
@get2sammyb except Robert in his subtitle! lol I jest...
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/02/rumour_ps4_update_to_add_pro_boost_mode_upping_frame_rate_of_unpatched_games
Good news for Pro owners. I think for me whenever I do go Pro, I'll be more interested in faster loading times than anything!
@ToOGoodOfAPlaya Well that's fine for you but for a lot of people, having a game that's 'supposed' to run at 60fps but invariably runs at 40fps or less is not great. Its much worse when games that should run at 30fps run at 20fps.
Even when games do manage to run 'closer' to the target, some have frame pacing issues, texture streaming delays, screen tear etc so having a 'boost' mode eliminates most of these or at least reduces the occurrences.
A game like Project Cars it seems actually runs at 60fps unless you really stress the console by having a lot of vehicles and rain but even then, the game runs in the 50's as opposed to barely above 30fps on a base PS4.
Of course if you are happy to play games at this level then fine. A game like AC:Unity is greatly improved by the boost and actually more playable. Whilst it doesn't change the story etc, it does make the game 'feel' much smoother, far less frustrating.
What Boost mode actually does is improve the core gameplay. Its not boosting the resolution - like pro enhanced games tend to offer. A side effect of Boost mode may be that games load a few seconds quicker, visually more stable due to less screen tear or maybe even less resolution drops in dynamically scaled games as well as have less texture pop in because of the increased bandwidth of RAM but fundamentally its purpose is to boost the performance of games and thus improve their core game-play.
Frame rate is vitally important to the game-play. Regardless of how the game is designed, the mechanics etc, if it runs at 20fps (or less) it really affects the game-play, the responsiveness etc and can actually make a game virtually unplayable. Maybe its not so important with games designed to run up to 60fps as they generally are above 30fps but the more consistent the performance, the better overall the game-play. Most frame rates drop in areas of high action like in combat - just when you need frame rates to be at their best!
Personally I am not 'overly' bothered about saving a few seconds here and there with loading times although it is a nice bonus. I am far more excited by the increased consistency with frame rates. The less screen tear and improved texture streaming is also a welcome bonus too.
Overall, these are small gains but definitely welcome. A lot of previously released PS4 games didnt have the best performance.
The thing is, those are games I don't really see a need in returning to. They were technically supposed to play this way the first time around. Always good to have options though.
I may be picking up a PS4Pro over the weekend since my current PS4 isnt cutting it. The share button has some problems and something is definitely wrong with the storage.
@BAMozzy Seems I'm replying to you a lot today
One reason that games usually get locked at 30fps if they can't hit a constant 60fps even if they are constantly over, for instance, 40fps is because of screen tearing - if the frame rate is not a multiple of your screens refresh rate then that causes that horrible effect that is truly a penalty in things like multiplayer shooters. On top of this a variable frame rate will make the game not feel as smooth as it should be. A 60fps experience is a huge advantage in multiplayer for Battlefield and something Sony said they wouldn't do with the Pro - the question is how long until we see a Pro only game if they are already going back on their original statement?
@fybyfyby That's good to know. I've been wanting to play Just Cause 3 with it on. Now when's it dropping for non-beta testers?! I wish they'd tell us something...
@Giygas_95 Hi its now in second phase. According to earlier experience with betas, it usually takes around 2-4 weeks to go public. But boost mode seems to me like most "dangerous" feature - for Sony. If someone doesnt use it right (like turn it on and doesnt know what its doing) and isnt familiar with ps4 settings, this feature can compromise your gaming and then people can start to complain. I have no negative experience with it so far (only positive ), but few games have some glitches as you can read elsewhere.
And because of this feature I can imagine it will take longer to go public. JC3, GTA V and also Witcher 3 are really better now - and of course - not only frame rates but also loading times - and that is really crucial when you always are beaten to death and dont want to lower difficulty.
This should sell quite a lot if PS4 Pros
@fybyfyby Many thanks for the explanation! I was starting to regret getting a Pro over a standard model, but I'm not anymore!
@dichotomy battlefield runs at an unlocked frame rate on both PS4 and PS4 pro (with 60fps being the upper cap) - in the case of BF1, it has a specific pro patch so it runs at about 1600p on average and thus has better image quality - thought it's hard to notice on a 1080p TV to be honest. it runs close to 60fps most of the time too. as somebody who's played it on both, the frame rate difference between the base model and pro is not significant imo, certainly not enough to offer a real perceivable advantage. the base PS4 uses dynamic scaling, so actually does a pretty good job of keeping close to 60 fps most of time. also from the perspective of the client, in some situations you may drop frames whilst somebody else on the same console doesn't depending on what's happening. in BF1, turn on the network performance monitor.. you'll see measures like tick rate, packet loss %, latency, etc. these are way more likely to affect multiplayer than a few frames per second, especially if your latency or packet loss is pretty bad.
Once its out, lets have a thread where people can note which non patched games have / have not improved. Id be keen to go back to a few games if things run a bit better
@leucocyte Being honest I can only go on what I read as to the performance gains, but the Eurogamer article this one is based on says
"Battlefield 4's performance-sapping 64-player online battles also see a vast improvement - we dipped into an intense multiplayer session and saw a marked improvement, representing a vast increase in fluidity over the same map running on the base PS4 hardware"
I don't play anywhere near competitively anymore, but I do know from when I used to play Quake 3 and the UTs that frame rate dips absolutely can affect you negatively. Given that most TVs are at 60Hz refresh rate (or occasionally 120) it means that if the game is running at 45 fps the tv will show a repeating sequence of frame 1, frame 2, frame 3, frame 3 and that double frame is very noticeable and is what causes the judder effect you get in uncapped games that don't hit the 60 or 30 fps target (or capped ones that don't hit their target).
Your ping and so forth is outside of Sony's control, but they did say they would keep multiplayer fair by not allowing the Pro to have a frame rate advantage as even they know that it is advantageous. Most people probably won't care, but for me at least it is another slight change that shows we are still moving further away from a level playing field and what consoles traditionally stood for.
im so glad I updated to the Pro
the Advantages Keep coming and coming
cant wait to replay some games just to see how theyve improved ^^
@Giygas_95 Hi today beta v4 has started. It seems more cycles are needed this time. So maybe another week or two to final version.
@fybyfyby Thanks for the update! I really appreciate you thinking of me and letting me know how it's coming!
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...