We finally have some expert analysis of how PS5 Pro’s new PS4 Image Enhancement toggle works, and what it actually achieves. Digital Foundry has released a rigorous test, and the results are noticeable if unremarkable.

It’s worth reiterating, once again, that this feature is not the priority of the PS5 Pro. Effectively, it adds a little more clarity to games running in backwards compatibility – although it does appear to largely target titles unpatched for the PS4 Pro or running at 1080p or lower.

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So, what’s it doing, then? Well, Digital Foundry doesn’t have a definitive answer, but it hypothesises that it’s using machine learning to upscale the image and make it “more palatable” on high resolution panels, like 4K televisions.

You can see things like text and objects in the distance resolve much sharper with the PS4 Image Enhancement tool enabled, providing a small bump in clarity. This isn’t comparable to native 4K, and it’s applied on top of all the graphical issues in the source material, such as any aliasing or shimmering.

However, it does resolve a cleaner image, albeit with a small performance cost in some instances. This, when paired with the PS5 Pro’s bigger GPU, means there’s very little disadvantage to turning it off – but you can disable it if you want to.

As we move forward, we hope this is something Sony continues to work on for the PS6. With technology like PSSR now under its umbrella, there’s real potential for the platform holder to offer a superb backwards compatibility solution for its next-gen console.

The results it’s delivering here are certainly nice to have, but we reckon there’s much more it could offer in this space with the right amount of investment.

[source youtube.com]