For over a year, I deeply regretted buying my PS5 Pro. Sony’s upgraded machine launched to little fanfare in late 2024, partly because it basically had no new games that took advantage of its beefed-up GPU. Worse, its headline PSSR feature felt woefully undercooked. It’s no wonder I stopped using my PS5 after discovering these Steam Big Picture features.
PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) was supposed to be Sony’s answer to Nvidia DLSS. Sadly, the first iteration of this upscaler simply wasn’t up to scratch. PSSR performance was so inconsistent in certain titles, games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor actually looked better on the PS5 than its enhanced big brother.
It’s only recently, with the release of PSSR 2.0, that Sony’s most expensive ever PlayStation truly feels like a prosumer console. I’m so enamored with the updated upscaler, I’ve barely touched my gaming PC for weeks.
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Why PSSR 1.0 was a weak upscaler
Breaking down the issues with Sony’s initial tech
Like DLSS and AMD’s FSR, PSSR uses AI to upscale and reconstruct an image. By rendering games at lower internal resolutions, then upscaling them to an output resolution that can closely resemble native 4K when the tech is working at its best, PSSR titles are less taxing on the PS5 Pro’s GPU than games that don’t support the upscaling system. The trouble is, the first incarnation of PSSR looked so much worse than DLSS. Granted, Nvidia has had years to refine its super-sampling tech, yet even for a first try, Sony’s upscaler looked downright bad in certain games.
To be fair to Sony, it’s not all the Japanese giant’s fault. Part of the problem with the original PSSR is that it required a lot of developer input to yield good results. Unfortunately, games such as Alan Wake 2 and Star Wars Outlaws looked subpar when PSSR was initially introduced, and that’s perhaps because their developers were still getting their heads around the upscaler. Despite these two titles looking superb on high-end PC hardware, poor PSSR implantation left these games looking like fuzzy messes on PS5 Pro, especially when you quickly panned the camera around detailed environments with a lot going on in the background.
Part of the problem with the original PSSR is that it required a lot of developer input to yield good results
The first iteration of PSSR really struggled with fine details. I’m talking about mesh fences, power lines or thick foliage, all of which could cause unpleasant pixel crawl — an ugly visual defect that can easily be spotted by those of us cursed with obsessive eyes.
When it got to the point where some games actually looked better on the far less powerful base PS5 compared to the supercharged Pro, it was clear Sony had to go back and revise PSSR. Thankfully, the company did go back to give its upscaler some much-needed TLC.
PSSR vs. PSSR 2.0
An easy win for the updated upscaler
Make no mistake: PSSR 2.0 knocks seven shades of snot out of its predecessor. Also known as “Enhanced PSSR”, the latest version of the AI upscaling tech produces far cleaner image quality in games that have been updated to support it.
PSSR 2.0 should be enabled on your PS5 Pro by default, but if it’s not, you can turn it on by going to Settings -> Screen and Video -> Video Output / 120Hz Output -> Enhance PSSR Image Quality.
I’ve played a bunch of games that used the original version of PSSR, and retesting these titles using Enhanced PSSR can provide a night and day uptick in visual performance. Take Konami’s excellent Silent Hill 2 remake. With Sony’s original upscaler, exploring the creepy titular town would show off all sorts of unwelcome shimmering effects (especially when foliage was on-screen). PSSR 2.0 gets rid of these unwanted artifacts to a large degree, producing a far more solid in-game image in return.
Other titles that now look much better with the new upscaler? Astro Bot, Crimson Desert, Demon’s Souls, Gran Turismo 7 and Hogwarts Legacy. Remedy’s paranormal detective sim looks particularly alluring with Enhanced PSSR enabled, to the point where Mr Wake’s spooky adventure is almost as attractive on a $900 console as it is on a PC that costs more than my car.
PSSR 2.0 games look “high-end PC” good
RTX 50-Series visuals for under $1,000
The one game, more than any other, that has completely floored me in terms of Enhanced PSSR, is Resident Evil Requiem. Capcom’s latest survival horror entry was one of the first titles to support Sony’s latest upscaler, and it looks fabulous.
On my 4K OLED, Requiem’s zombie-bashing action looks nearly as good as any Triple A title I’ve played on my RTX 5090-powered PC. Sure, it may not sport incredible path tracing features, but PSSR 2.0 makes Leon and Grace’s adventure look incredibly sharp thanks to top-tier anti-aliasing and effective upscaling.
I’ve played Requiem on both my PS5 Pro and a high-end gaming PC, and honestly, the visual gap between both versions is surprisingly small. Though the Pro is hardly a budget piece of kit considering it received a semi-recent price hike that took the MSRP to $900, by contrast, RTX 5090s normally retail for between $3,500–$4,000 at time of writing. As much as I love Capcom’s use of path tracing in the PC version, that’s not worth over triple the cost of my PS5 Pro.
PS5 Pro finally has worthy upscaling tech
I’m so glad Marc Cerny went back to the drawing board with PSSR. PlayStation’s lead architect trumpeted the AI upscaler as one of PS5 Pro’s biggest selling points, yet in its original incarnation, implementation was hugely hit-and-miss. PSSR 2.0 thankfully fixes most of the issues I had with the OG upscaler, reducing flickering artifacts while making overall image quality cleaner. A bunch of PS5 Pro games now look so good they’re almost on par with the most graphically impressive PC games. And last I checked, you couldn’t build a RTX 50-Series rig for $900.
