Native 4K on a CONSOLE - PS4 Pro
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,964 words · ~9 min read
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for a while now one of the major selling points of going with a PC gaming setup
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instead of buying a console has been support for running games at a higher
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resolution with 4K being the latest woman in the red dress but no more
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console gamers are finally getting their first taste of the 4K experience with
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the Xbox One S a console that upscales
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1080p games to 4K but what if you want
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your console to natively render games in 4k like a PC Sony advertises Dynamic 4K
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gaming and 4K entertainment asterisk and
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Native 4k on Pro but what does that little star mean let's find
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out tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately
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in the video description like the Xbox One S the PS4 Pro isn't
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part of a new generation of consoles as it largely resembles the base model of
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the PlayStation 4 with only a few key differences aside from just being larger
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and packing an extra USB port most notably the GPU or graphics processor
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has been seriously overhauled with 36 radon compute units twice as many as the
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original along with a 111 MHz increase
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on the graphics clock combine that with a 500 MHz increase on the CPU and 24%
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greater memory bandwidth Sony has certainly given themselves some room to
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play with when it comes to increasing performance there's also an HDMI 2.0
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Port as opposed to the HDMI 1.0 port on
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the base model so it's pretty clear Sony is targeting users with 4K displays and
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the addition of HDMI 2.0 isn't just a gimmick as the PS4 Pro does feature some
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titles that will run at 4K 60 frames per second mind you these are either older
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or less graphically demanding games the HDMI 2.0 Port also supports High dynamic
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range with the hdr10 standard so even if
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not everything runs at 60fps you'll get richer colors and more accurate black
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levels for better detailing if you have a compatible TV and you're playing a
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supported game or watching supported streaming video content but how does it
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work well older games like Skyrim will just native render at 4K they don't need
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to do anything else but many newer titles will use techniques like Dynamic
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scaling where frames are rendered at some resolution between full HD and 4K
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even depending on the scene within the single game then they're upscaled to
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well 4K then there's what's called checkerboard rendering which only
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renders half the pixels on a 4K display
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the way checkerboarding works is that it renders pixels in a diagonal pattern
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instead of leaving out entire vertical lines this makes it easier at least in
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theory for the system to guess at the missing pixels resulting in sharper
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images and better anti-aliasing than traditional upscaling but does it really
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what's the best way to find out we initially thought about doing a more
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traditional video with screen captures but with YouTube video compression being
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what it is and us not even having a compatible HDMI 2.0 capture card anyway
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which is important as the PS4 refuses to push even a 4K at 30 HZ signal over an
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HDMI 1.4 connection we decided to do something a bit different and more real
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world remember the Pepsi Challenge from the 1990s now I'm going to pick this up
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and tell me which one you chose Pepsi well instead of doing a blind
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taste test between Pepsi and Coke we set up three identical monitors side by side
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and let some of our team members tell us which system they preferred a PS4 Pro
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running at 4K a bass PS4 running at
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1080P and a PC running at 4K with an
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rx480 which we chose because it can handle 4K at reasonable settings and
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frame rates and a value-minded 4K gamer
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might be able to afford it with the money he or she saved on a PlayStation
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Network subscription Colton Linus and Tyler were our guinea pigs in the PS4
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Pro challenge in which they played rise of the Tomb Raider and Skyrim on each of
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the three systems recording their thoughts in between we chose these games
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due to their different rendering methods rise of the Tomb Raider uses
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checkerboard rendering to accomplish 4K upscaling while Skyrim runs 4K natively
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so what did our participants prefer well let's find out all right so I think a is
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the PlayStation 4 what's B I think B is
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the PC okay and I think C is the PS4 Pro
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okay you'd be correct thank you I thought the PlayStation 4 One like in
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comparison to PC was like terrible just terrible I was like okay wow yes I
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I did get my guesses right like Colton said it was a lot harder to tell in Tomb
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Raider it's very well optimized game so
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frame rate dips were much less noticeable PS4 Pro and PS4 texture
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quality wise looked very similar to me I couldn't really tell a difference it was
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mostly in the sharpness of the image that I could tell the difference between
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the two Skyrim on the other hand the PlayStation 4 is a dog in Skyrim there's
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obvious frame rate dips when you Pan the camera around PS4 was probably dipping
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down to like 22 frames per second when I was panning the camera around PS4 Pro
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held steady at 30 like I could really tell that that cinematic jutter was
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consistent at the very least uh but the PC was obviously running at 60 to 90
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frames per second with really low frame times you actually got um your guessing
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100% wrong in Tomb Raider I thought for sure that a was the PS Pro mm that uh B
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was the PC and that c was the PlayStation okay so you got the two
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versions of PlayStation mixed up oh what about on Skyrim and then on Skyrim it
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was really hard I could still I was still pretty confident that c was the
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PlayStation but it was hard for me to tell between a and b when I was when I
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was playing Tomb Raider on this I kind of felt like okay like this is this one
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doesn't have as great graphics as the other ones but it's still it was still a
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good gaming experience I feel like I could sit down and play it and not be really pulled out of it whereas when I
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played Skyrim on on C I kind of like if I had sat down to just play that I
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probably would have felt upset at the graphics so it looks like our results
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depended a fair bit on what game was being played for a closer look here are
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the 4K screenshots from the PS4 Pro as well as our PC running rise of the Tomb
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Raider at high and very high presets texture quality between the PS4 Pro and
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the PC on high is quite similar though
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the PC does a better job with foliage Shadows water effects and color while
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very high far outstrips both with with much more articulated textures and
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shadows but what if you're like me and you don't own a 4K TV well in this case
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the PS4 is definitely a tougher sell but
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that doesn't mean that Sony totally forgot about Gamers who are rocking a
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mere 1080p display a number of PS4
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titles are super sampled on the pro this means that they're rendered at a higher
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resolution like 4K and then scaled down to fit a 1080p screen one such game is
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the aformentioned Skyrim and the PS 4 Pro super sampling makes a big
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difference here both of these screenshots are 1080p but you can see
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the big difference in texture detail on the PS4 Pro versus the base model in
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this scene with the ground the wooden steps and planks the tree branch in the
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top left and the grass roof all looking
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much nicer on the PS4 Pro but
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unfortunately these games don't support the PS4 Pro's much B HED High dynamic
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range or HDR capabilities which is supposed to give Gamers more accurate
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colors and more detail in bright and dark areas of the screen so we connected
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our PS4 Pro to Linus's LG signature OLED
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4K TV with full hdr10 support which you
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can learn more about in our review right up here and fired up DSX mankind divided
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one of a handful of PS4 titles with HDR
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support unfortunately it's not really possible to screen capture HDR content
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properly and directly but we were able to snap these shots from the Dubai level
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this room is quite dark without HDR but with it turned on you can definitely see
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more detail in the darkest parts of the image such as in the sand the equipment
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in the lower left and the far wall on the right side while the image quality
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isn't at the same level you could get on a PC HDR definitely makes the scene pop
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more and speaking of popping should you be popping the PS4 Pro into your living
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room setup this holiday season well at $400 it's definitely a little
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more than a lot of folks are used to paying for a new console these days it's
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$100 more than Microsoft's midcycle refresh of the Xbox One S and that's
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without 4K Blu-ray support a perplexing and frustrating Omission but to the
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Discerning Eye it gets us closer to PC quality 4K than has ever been possible
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on a console before and that's really cool the rumors of its melting death
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seem to have been great exaggerated and while the price is higher it's still a
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pretty solid value if you have a PS4 I probably
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wouldn't upgrade if you have a 4K TV and
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no PS4 and you want something really easy to plug into it and get a really
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solid 4K experience might be a solid
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description down below thanks for watching guys this is this video sucked
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you know what to do if you liked this video and you made it this far into the
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video hit the like button get subscribed all that fun stuff also check the
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description down below where you can buy a PS4 Pro and three more PlayStation
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controllers if you need to do that also we have shirts and stuff down there and
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the community Forum you should check that out too if you want to see another video check out this one it is the Xbox
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One S review we released it not even way too long ago they seem to come in pairs