Without a doubt , thePlayStation 5 Prois the most powerful game console we ’ve ever see . It ’s rig to establish next workweek , promising “ 45 % quicker rendering ” on the back of a strapping graphics notice and firm memory . It wo n’t be enough to outclass a proper play desktop packing one of thebest graphics card — not even close . But the PS5 Pro could have an edge over PCs in one area .
I say “ could ” because we really do n’t know . AMD pointed me to Sony , and Sony has n’t returned my request for commentary about the specifics under the tough of the PS5 Pro . I have some suggestion , however , and if you ’ll indulge a petty speculation , I have some interesting theories about how the PS5 Pro might have an edge over even powerful play PCs .
The PS5 Pro’s secret weapon
Some context is important here . There are three pillar of the PS5 Pro ’s functioning , consort to Sony — a faster GPU , betterray trace , and AI - assisted upscaling through PSSR . We get laid all about that material , but it does n’t precisely give the PS5 Pro an upper hired man over PCs .
But Sony ’s lead systems designer , Mark Cerny , has tell there ’s another prospect of the PS5 Pro that Sony is n’t highlighting in press releases . The engineerhas hinted that the PS5 Pro hasray tracing feature that “ no other AMD GPUs ” have yet . It ’s incur a trick up its arm , so to speak .
There ’s a lot to break down in a quote like that . Cerny is referring to shaft of light tracing feature , and in a elbow room that ’s not bound to specific games , but specific graphics cards . He ’s not talking about shaft of light - line ambient occlusion or reflections — forward-looking AMD GPUs can handle those . Rather , it seems like Cerny is referring to rendering feature of speech that otherwise are n’t available on screen background AMD graphics card , even those as powerful as theRX 7900 XTX .
Now , Sony state the PS5 Pro will be able to encourage or stabilize the functioning of over 8,500 games , butjust shy of 90 gameshave proper PS5 Pro sweetening , at least at the time of writing . That mean a large swath of games will see a performance uplift purely from the larger GPU , but developer need to do some level of workplace specifically to “ enhance ” their game for the PS5 Pro . It seems those enhancement largely concentrate around better ray tracing and PSSR .
Those two fact are significant to keep in brain . The PS5 Pro has ray tracing features that no AMD art carte currently has , and at least some of those features postulate specific developer integration for full support . With those make , we can move onto the fun stuff — denoising .
The importance of denoising
Do n’t expect Sony to sing about denoising with the PS5 Pro . It does n’t get in the green goddess like that . But the PS5 Pro is a console table that ’s packing “ advanced electron beam tracing , ” and that command denoising . you could suppose of denoising as clean up a mussy ray - trace picture . In the range of a function above , you’re able to see a noisy image in the top - impart box . The denoising algorithm make out in and cleans up the grainy mess and leads to the image you see on the right .
Ray trace make by take samples of tripping shaft for each picture element . These shoot out into the scene , bounce around , and refract , hopefully terminate at a weak source . They do n’t always , though . These misses lead to some pixels stimulate no information about lighting . There are ways around this .
you may take more samples per pel , though at a prejudicious toll to operation ( usually in offline rendering ) . Or , you’re able to add weights to a tantrum to make it more likely that the ray sack at a light origin . irrespective , you ’ll still be left with some amount of dissonance that you want to houseclean up .
There are a lot of room to manage denoising , unremarkably looking at premature frames or neighboring pixels to forecast out what the prototype is neglect . However , we ’ve also ensure AI applied to the denoising process throughNvidia ’s Ray Reconstruction . Similar to upscaling , AI isreally goodat denoising . you may see for yourself in the image above how much a dispute Bradypus tridactylus - get denoising makes , and without any drop to carrying into action .
My possibility — and it ’s just a theory — is that the PS5 Pro is using some sort of AI - tug denoising . It ’s full speculation , but I have a couple of reasons why it might be true .
The first is PSSR itself . Sony says that PSSR is “ AI - driven , ” which likely means that there ’s an AI simulation running in real time on the console , upscaling your game . It ’s also a feature undivided to PS5 Pro - enhanced games , suggest it require specific desegregation likeNvidia ’s DLSSand ca n’t mold universally like AMD ’s Radeon Super Resolution .
Second is that we know thatAMD is working onAI - power upscaling and denoising with a undivided algorithm . The caller has been forward that its next variant of FSR upscaling will let in an AI backbone , and its most recent publish inquiry say it ’s able to do both upscaling and denoising with a exclusive model . Further , just this week , AMD say it ’s work hard to bring the next version of FSR toCall of responsibility : Black Ops 6,suggesting the firing is justly around the turning point .
If these are n’t the exclusive ray tracing features that Cerny was utter about , I ’m not certain what is . If right , that would give the PS5 Pro a leg up over microcomputer . We have Nvidia Ray Reconstruction , but that ’s only available in five game , and only at high graphics options that GPUs as sinewy as theRTX 4060would fight to run . Meanwhile , we already cognize about 87 PS5 Pro - enhanced games , and that ’s before the console is even here .
Still up in the air
The PS5 Pro is n’t here yet , and even when it is , Sony likely wo n’t release dense expert details about how it handle denoising . Right now , we have two dots — AMD ’s enquiry on AI - powered denoising and upscaling , and the features we acknowledge about on the PS5 Pro — and I ’m trying to unite them . That does n’t mean it ’s a straight line .
It would be a very interesting practical software , however . Unlike a personal computer , where these peter are often used to get framing charge per unit in the triple digits , a console table is target either 30 physical body per second ( fps ) or 60 Federal Protective Service . Shortcuts like upscaling and denoising show up in a dissimilar context , lend the consoles up to equality without pure hardware advantage . Even if it ’s still a ways behind something like theRX 7800 XT , we lie with there ’s a large GPU in the PS5 Pro .
Hopefully , it wo n’t be prospicient until we see AMD ’s AI - powered denoiser and upscaler on PC . Not only will that open up broader funding in games , it ’ll also give us a chance to heap up the quality against the PS5 Pro to see what ’s really going on under the hoodlum .
