Considering how many new confirmations and details came out of the first real gameplay showcase for Grand Theft Auto 6, it was very surprising that the big kicker at the end of it all was actually more about hardware. Rockstar could've done a lot in the final few moments of the preview, but instead, it chose to confirm that all 26 minutes of footage came from a base PlayStation 5. That's got to mean something, especially given that the PS5 Pro has been subtly and consequentially absent from most of the details coming from this round of the Grand Theft Auto 6 rollout.
As someone who spends most of their time blissfully ignorant of the console rat race, the idea that this new GTA 6 footage came from the base console rather than Sony's premium model strikes me as a reassuring note as much as a technical footnote. But after some reflection and several sources confirming that Rockstar is targeting 30 fps on consoles at launch, I think there's more to it. The good news is that, as I see it, what's going unsaid actually helps the consumer and hurts the PS5 Pro's sales pitch, which is significantly better than the other way around.
Some helpful context for those who might be out of the loop: Sony has spent months telling people that Grand Theft Auto 6 "plays best" on PS5, complete with a bespoke logo attached to a joint PlayStation Blog post with Rockstar. That's all well and good, but given the PS5 and the PS5 Pro are actually two different things, and that the PlayStation store listing ambiguously tags the game as PS5 Pro Enhanced, there's a bit of a detail discrepancy in practice. The obvious worry hanging over every PlayStation pre-order is simple: will the base console feel like a compromised way to play GTA 6?
Well, Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look answered that question with a resounding no, or at least it seems that way, considering how well the PS5 seems to be doing. Digital Foundry's analysis of the PS5 presentation was close to unqualified in its praise; Richard Leadbetter called the achievement "singular across the entire console generation - gaming's equivalent to the Apollo space programme" and in Oliver Mackenzie's case, it might've been "the most impressive example of real-time game rendering he's ever seen." Their subsequent technical breakdown supports the enthusiasm.
For starters, Digital Foundry identified ray-traced reflections and ray-traced global illumination running on the base machine, describing the RTGI as performant and world-class even with some residual noise in the reconstruction. The frame rate held, too, with the outlet reporting a mostly locked 30 across the presentation and only very occasional single-frame drops. Considering the sheer amount of game GTA 6 clearly contains, single-frame drops on a six-year-old console are remarkably impressive.
Digital Foundry did flag one weakness in the resolution department, though, and it's important to note, even if it does feel a bit like techno-babble to the layperson. The internal rendering resolution appeared to be 1440p with no dynamic resolution scaling, upscaled to 4K by what looked like a straightforward spatial pass rather than a modern temporal reconstruction technique. The consequences of that are a certain softness, geometric aliasing, and shimmer on fine detail; things that GTA 6's Ray-traced elements might actually make worse, with noisier reflections compared to other older screen-space solutions.
It's hard not to see all of these positive sentiments and question the PS5 Pro's proposition as a meaningful "enhancement" to GTA 6, especially since Rob Nelson, co-studio head and head of development at Rockstar North, has confirmed following several post-preview interviews that current console builds are running at 30 fps. He did not carve out an exception for the PS5 Pro—in fact, the console went entirely unmentioned in Rockstar's preview sessions. Even more damning, Nelson did not commit to a 60fps mode at launch or afterward, either, saying he would need to check with the technical team before commenting.
پێش ئەوەی کات تەواو بێت سیلۆیەتەکان بناسە.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://gamerant.com/gta-6-ps5-pro-upgrade-30-fps/
