PS4 Pro and 1080p - The JareBear's Blog

The JareBear's Blog

PS4 Pro and 1080p

Posted on November 12, 2016 at 12:04 PM.

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I wrote a little review after 7 hours with my Pro, it is a post down from this one in the blog.

Basically, after pouring in many many many more hours, my thoughts are pretty much the same as they are in my original "Bottom Line," which is as follows:

At 1080p SDR have I noticed huge gains across the board with the PRO? NO. I have not.

Do I feel this is a necessary upgrade for everyone at 1080p?
Nope, I sure don't.

Do I feel like every 1080p user needs to go out and buy a PS4 Pro RIGHT FREAKING NOW!?!?!?!?!?

No, I do not.

First thing, don't go off of screens or vids. Go to a BB or Walmart, or GS, or wherever, and play on a Pro to see for yourself. Only you can be the judge if the boost at 1080p is enough for you.

I know it is kind of convenient to say "YO THERES A BIG GAIN BUT YOU WONT SEE IT IN MY VIDS OR SCREENS." I get that. But, sincerely, the only way you can truly accurately judge is if you see it in action, live, yourself.

As with all consoles I expect games to take futher and further advantage of the Pro benefits moving forward and this time a year from now there should be a great catalog of PS4 Pro Enhanced games with numerous games showing big gains. Until then, we only have what we have.

Are you a PC guy? Are you a graphics fiend? Do you count pixels and frown over every dropped frame? Then you are like me. This is a console for you. I love it. If you are strictly a console guy who is used to generational leaps from system to system, at 1080p you may not find what you are looking for quite yet.

This all remains true, for me, a few days and more hours in.

The PS4 Pro is not a miracle machine. It is still anchored/handcuffed to the same crappy Jaguar CPU as before, albeit with a nice little overclock, but that can only make up for so much. The CPU still hampers the performance with a bottleneck that the beefier GPU can't just magically always make up for.

What surprises me most so far is that not every game looks better at 1080p. Some games look much better at 1080p (TF2, Paragon, Ratchet and Clank, Shador of Mordor), some games look just a little bit better (UC4, BF1, Dishonored 2, ROTTR), but some games don't look better at all and are identical to vanilla PS4 (like CoD:IW and MWR, Deus Ex).

Why is that? I thought that every Pro game at 1080p would at least get downsampling as the Pro would render the same image 4k displays get, but just downsample it to 1080p? Is this not the case?

Also, will all devs, or most devs, moving forward provide options like inFamous and ROTTR have for 1080p displays in regards to choosing between increased frame rate(which feels GREAT in both inFamous and ROTTR) or increased resolution (which provides a minor bump at 1080p in both ROTTR and inFamous, the frame rate mode probably provides more substantial improvements in these games).

I guess that remains to be seen. If all, or most, brand new games offer these kind of options, or at least give the big image boost that Titanfall 2 gives at 1080p, then the system is a no brainer. As of right now it is just a nice kind of novelty for graphics fiends who wants the best at any cost. As of right now I can see why a number of, and maybe even most, 1080p gamers are holding off on Pro upgrades. The improvements are there already, but it is very inconsistent and have a lot of room to grow.

Just my opinion.

Comments

# 1 Tomba @ Nov 12

I'm going to maybe add to this with my own opinion by answering someof the questions you answered for ppl.

If you digitally download games buy a PRO
If you play games on Discs do not buy a PRO
If you have a 2015 1080p display Buy a PRO
If you have a 1080p from before 2015 do not buy a PRO
If all you play is NBA 2k17 buy a PRO
IF you have a 4k tv that plays 4k at 60hz Buy a PRO
If you dont have a PS4 and have wanted one Buy a PS4 PRO instead of a slim it future proofs you
and finally
If this a decision between the PRO and Xboxs scorpio just know PS4 content will never get a PC version windows 10 will with their xbox one content so buying a PRO is actually better than buying a scorpio which can be replaced for a windows 10 gaming pc easily

# 2 DBMcGee3 @ Nov 16

This is all very interesting. I have a Samsung 55" 1080p that I bought last November. I've been debating whether to trade in my PS4 and shell out the additional $250 I would need for the upgrade, but it just seems like a big investment to make without having a 4k TV.

Hey Tomba, I'm curious about a couple of things you noted:

1) What is it about the 1080p TVs from 2015 and later that is different than those before, in relation to the PRO?

2) Why is the Pro better for playing digital games but not discs?

Thanks to you both, very informative read.