After a major leak regarding the PlayStation 5 Pro last month, new information has surfaced today. The Verge indeed delivers new details on the machine, but also on what Sony expects from developers.
Some more details about the PlayStation 5 Pro
- Concept image of Insider Gaming
The media was indeed able to get their hands on the complete list of specifications for the PlayStation Pro 5, in addition to having new information coming from sources familiar with Sony's plans.
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The PlayStation 5 Pro, which is internally codenamed Trinity, would thus be much more capable than the PlayStation 5 of offering ray tracing or achieving higher resolutions and refresh rates in certain titles. There's obviously nothing surprising here, especially since Insider Gaming previously revealed this.
We already knew, since last month, that the GPU of the PlayStation 5 Pro would be around 45% faster than on PlayStation 5 and that ray-tracing would be 2 to 3 times faster (x 4 in some cases). This new leak reports a “more powerful ray tracing architecture”.
As previously reported by Insider Gaming, the CPU would be the same as that of the PlayStation 5, but would have a “High CPU Frequency Mode” allowing it to reach 3.85 GHz, an increase of 10% compared to to the standard console. Using this mode, more power would be allocated to the CPU and the GPU would be downclocked by around 1.5%, resulting in around a 1% drop in GPU performance.
Regarding memory, we learned that the memory bandwidth of the PlayStation 5 Pro system would be 576 GB/s (18 GT/s), compared to 448 GB/s (14 GT/s) for the current PlayStation 5. We would therefore note an increase of 28%. Sony specifies in the document for developers that they will have better access to the overall system memory. Games can use 1.2 GB of additional memory on the PS5 Pro, making 13.7 GB total, compared to 12.5 GB for the base PS5.
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The Verge also discusses Spectral Super Resolution technology, Sony's in-house DLSS aimed at supporting resolutions up to 8K. Today, there is around 2ms of latency when upscaling a 1080p image to 4K. Sony is now seeking to improve this delay and reach 8K.
Sony asks developers to have games ready for this summer
Much more interesting, Sony would like to encourage developers to make more use of the graphics functions of the PlayStation 5 Pro, such as ray tracing, by affixing the label “Trinity Enhanced”, if they “provide significant improvements”.
We can also read in the document that “Trinity is a high-end version of the PlayStation 5” and that Sony will obviously continue to sell the standard model of the PlayStation 5.
Sony expects developers to have a single dev kit supporting both PlayStation 5 Pro and PlayStation 5. Obviously, already existing games could benefit from improvements, provided that studios look into on the subject.
Also, developers would already be able to order test kits and Sony would like all games subject to “Trinity Enhanced” certification to be compatible with the PlayStation 5 Pro in August.
The PlayStation 5 Pro is expected to be released this summer.
Is an Xbox Series X Pro planned?
With all of its growing rumors surrounding Sony's Pro console, Xbox gamers are of course wondering if Microsoft has a similar treatment planned. For the moment, absolutely nothing has been made official.
Last year, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, said that there was currently no need to offer players mid-generation consoles. Only, a few months later, presentations of new Xbox Series surfaced through a leak as part of the trial between Microsoft and the FTC for the purchase of Activision Blizzard King.
We thus discovered an Xbox Series X designed solely for dematerialized content, equipped with a 2 TB SSD and other valuable features. For its part, the new Xbox Series S should feature a 1TB SSD, a USB-C port on the front and other improvements.
These consoles were never made official, however, and Phil Spencer even said “a lot has changed and there is so much to be excited about now and in the future.”
Finally, according to an insider, a white Xbox Series X without a disc drive should debut between June and July 2024.
For her part, Sarah Bond, the president of Xbox, confirmed last month that information on new hardware will be shared at the end of the year and that her teams are also “investing in the next generation roadmap”.
It therefore remains to be seen whether it will be a model aimed at offering performance similar to that of the PlayStation 5 Pro.