Technology test shows better ray tracing and higher resolutions

“Fortnite” also benefits from the PS5 Pro. Improved graphics quality and higher resolutions are the result. Ray tracing can also score points in the technology test.

The PS5 Pro update for “Fortnite” takes the battle royale title’s graphical capabilities to a higher level, a test from Digital Foundry revealed. The ray tracing functions and global illumination were particularly impressive.

Using hardware-based ray tracing, reflections are captured in “Fortnite” on the PS5 Pro presented much more realistically. Moving objects such as players or vehicles appear precisely in reflective surfaces – an advance compared to the software-based solution of the standard PS5.

Global illumination also benefits, as diffuse light calculations are presented in a more physically plausible and stable manner. According to Digital, artifacts such as unstable lighting effects are a thing of the past.

Fortnite uses TSR instead of PSSR on the PS5 Pro

By using TSR, a scaling technology optimized specifically for the Unreal Engine, the internal resolution in an identical scene increases from 1080p (PS5) to 1350p (PS5 Pro), which corresponds to an increase in the total number of pixels by approximately 50 percent. The visual quality remains consistent even with dynamic resolution scaling, which ensures a smooth image, especially in action-packed game scenes.

The decision to use TSR instead of Sony's PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) appears to prevent problems in the case of “Fortnite” as recently seen with some PS5 Pro upgrades with PSSR support – for example in the remake of “Silent Hill 2”.

Digital Foundry writes: “TSR is tailored to the needs of Epic's engine and is fully integrated and responsively developed with all other technologies in the engine. TSR works as harmoniously as possible with the engine’s unique characteristics, resulting in overall competent image quality.”

Therefore, TSR will be seen more frequently in Unreal Engine games in the future until “PSSR has proven to be a viable alternative”.

In the video, Digital Foundry shows how “Fortnite” performs on the PS5 Pro.

Hardware ray tracing delivers impressive results

According to Digital Foundry, the use of hardware ray tracing in 60 FPS mode makes “Fortnite” a showcase of how Unreal Engine 5 features can be effectively used on consoles. The publication highlights:

  • Reflections of trees, vehicles and characters are more detailed than with the software-based solution, where only clunky approximations were shown.
  • Moving objects such as players and vehicles are visible in reflections, which is not the case on the standard PS5.

The PS5 Pro achieves PC levels of “high” in areas such as RT reflections, and almost “epic” in global illumination. However, TSR and post-processing are at medium quality, which makes sense for the hardware and performance. At the same time, the desired resolutions remain stable in most cases.

The complete one You can read Digital Foundry’s analysis here.

Further reports about the PS5 Pro:



The PS5 Pro came onto the market at the beginning of November and is now the most powerful console of the current generation. For this, players put around 800 euros on the table, but do not receive a disk drive for this amount.

More news about Fortnite, PS5 Pro.



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