The PS5 Pro gives console players the guilt-free 60 fps that PC players have enjoyed for years

HardwareThe PS5 Pro gives console players the guilt-free 60 fps that PC players have enjoyed for yearsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Sony Entertainment)

A small character holding a wrench with a robot on its back stands in a bright arena

It’s been years since I’ve had to endure playing a game at a glacial 30 frames per second, and I don’t think I’d survive going back. Most gaming PCs have been able to hit 60 fps without much trouble for years now, as long as you’re not cranking the settings up to ultra on a 4K screen. Consoles, on the other hand, often still have to sacrifice a lot of visual fidelity to make games runas smoothly as our eyes deserve.

The PlayStation 5 Pro doesn’t get rid of all the trade-offs for playing games at a high frame rate, but it removes enough of them to make the choice a no-brainer in any game with a proper “performance” mode.

I’ve been using a pre-release PS5 Pro from Sony for the last week, and the biggest upgrade it has over the original console is how good games look in their new 60 fps modes. Every game I tested had an improved “performance” option with fewer knocks to image quality than before. With the extra horsepower in the PS5 Pro and Sony’s homemade AI upscaling tech, PSSR, you have to squint to notice what you’re giving up from the 30 fps “fidelity” modes. I’m happy for everyone with a deep library of games tied to a PSN account.

The PS5 Pro is no threat to your gaming PC though. The Pro still can’t match a decent graphics card, nor does it offer enough graphics options to let you find your own balance of frame rate and image quality. You’re stuck with presets outside of some first-party games like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Spider-Man 2. But it’s nice to finally have a console that doesn’t smear Vaseline over the screen when you ask it to output some extra frames.To be clear, my PS5 Pro tests weren’t scientific. I don’t have the kit to measure frame rate on a console, so I don’t have the kind ofin-depth performance analysisthat we do for PC games. If you want to see real-time comparisons, I’m sureDigital Foundrywill have you covered. But after primarily playing PC games at 60 fps (and higher) for years, I’m pretty confident I can identify the frame rate for each game and pick up on dips when they strike.

The Last of Us Part 1’s new “Pro” mode uses the PS5 Pro’s Nvidia DLSS equivalent to hit a steady 60 fps without a ton of visual degradation. The game is rendered at 1440p and upscaled to 4K using PSSR, and the biggest downside seems to be softer edges on things like blades of grass and bricks. Details like the fronds of ferns, however, are surprisingly accurate to the native 4K mode without PSSR. Naughty Dog’s head of technology Travis McIntosh toldIGNthat PSSR’s “neural network is trained to do foliage really well,” and it shows.

Spider-Man 2 is a similar story. Its 60 fps “performance pro” mode also uses PSSR and has raytraced reflections enabled. It’s only when you’re fighting down on the ground that the raytraced shadows and ambient occlusion make a difference in its 30 fps “fidelity pro” mode, giving scenes more realistic lighting on the buildings and streets. The smaller crowds and fewer shadows in performance mode didn’t bother me. I was much more impressed that the game maintains close to 60 fps during its bombastic opening battle against the Sandman, which makes the combat feel way better than it does in fidelity pro mode.

If your monitor or TV supports a 120Hz refresh rate, Spider-Man 2’s fidelity pro mode can be boosted up to around 40 fps with its raytracing settings knocked down to medium. As a Steam Deck user, I’ve learned to appreciate how close 40 fps can feel to 60 fps as long as it’s consistent. I obviously can’t speak to performance for the entire game, but it’s a neat option if you have the setup for it. And screens that support variable refresh rates can use the “unlocked” setting to add some extra fps overhead to keep the game from getting choppy at the cost of the resolution dipping when it needs to.

The PS5 Pro is a big step toward console players joining the 60 fps party that PC players have enjoyed for years, and a lot of it is due to PSSR. I don’t think these improvements are worth $700, though, especially if you own a gaming PC or even a PS5. Unless you’re desperate to play the Sony games that haven’t been ported over yet, PC is still the way to go. But hopefully it means Sony’s next console won’t make it look like you’re playing the Wish.com version of a game to reap the benefits of a silky smooth 60 fps.

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