PS4 Pro Gets "Boost Mode" To Improve All PS4 Titles

Can it make the old games reach 2010 standards though?

From what I'm seeing in these videos, it seems like a pretty noticeable difference..

I don't have some super high expectation of it. However, as long as it can deliver the basic guarantee of consistent 30 fps, that should be enough for me to consider giving Bloodborne another whirl.

I've been playing witcher 3 lately and the fps does chug below 30 at times, specially in novigrad but this boost mode makes it smooth as butter. :P Damn this is pretty awesome.

@cainetao11: I'm not wetting myself, but you're implying that a) this is somehow staged and the whole onus of providing evidence of such a thing falls entirely on you and b) you're also implying the difference "isn't night and day" when it clearly is. This one clearly goes from "choppy mess" to "hey, now I can actually use the camera!". And it's not just the fps count that went up in that example, the number of thorn frames is also reduced. That alone probably has a greater impact that anything else, since it's a much more visceral visual impact.

So yeah bro. Your eyes. Get them checked. When even AC: Unity of all things benefits from this, you know something has to be working.

You're expecting too much from him.

The Pro should have had this from the beginning. Better late than never I guess.

No it isn't, BF1 is Pro patched not BF4. You must have them mixed up.

Do you really own a Pro.? Why would it melt it.? Is not like they are over clocking your Pro what they are doing is allowing the pro extra power to be use for faster frames..lol

Well is not fair for consumer to pay extra for power and not being able to use it when it can be.

First of all i don't think is a dual GPU scenario and more or adding 18 more CU,the PS4 Pro uses Polaris tech polaris doesn't have 20CU in non of its GPU,but it has one with 36 CU exactly like the Pro.

"First, we doubled the GPU size by essentially placing it next to a mirrored version of itself, sort of like the wings of a butterfly.

GCN goes from is very scalable the the 7870 has double the CU of the 7770 that doesn't mean it is dual GPU.

To accommodate ultra HD rendering, there are obviously boosts to the GPU too, and they hail from AMD's architectures of the present and indeed the future, just as Cerny said at the PlayStation Meeting last month.

"Polaris is a very energy efficient GPU architecture that lets us boost the GPU power pretty dramatically, while keeping the console form-factor roughly the same. DCC - which is short for delta colour compression - is a roadmap feature that's been improved for Polaris. It's making its PlayStation debut in PS4 Pro," Mark Cerny shares, confirming in the process that this feature was not implemented in the standard PS4 model.

There isn't a Polaris GPU with 18 CU it simply doesn't exist.

The RX480 is 36 CU.

The RX470 is 32CU.

The RX460 is 14CU.

That i know off there is no 18 or 20 CU polaris,so again it is not SLI or any shit like it Mark was probably talking about increasing GPU size by doubling it.

In fact the Pro has features on its GPU that even polaris lack,they are Vega features,and Pitcairn for sure doesn't have them.

"How it works is that we sit down with AMD, who are terribly collaborative. It's a real pleasure to work with them. So basically, we go ahead and say how many CUs we want to have and we look at the roadmap features and we look at area and we make some decisions and we even - in this case - have the opportunity, from time to time, to have a feature in our chip before it's in a discrete GPU. We have two of these this time, which is very nice."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-inside-playstation-4-pro-how-sony-made-a-4k-games-machine

By the way an SLI setup will require even more CPU power as you are feeding 2 GPU at once,so is totally out of the question.

But i don't even know why you are downplaying this and even bringing the xbox one,you claim it works great on xbox one S? Yeah is works so great that is some games it does nothing regardless of the speed bump.

The hardware is not exactly the same on xbox one s,WTF the xbox one can't upscale to 4k and can't use HDR if it was just a speed bump the older hardware would get it to and do 4k as well and HDR,the hardware now uses a smaller process with better features like 4k scaling.

@tormentos: well, that's the obvious answer. the fact that they didn't allow it at first was ******** to say the least.

Anyone still wanna buy a Slim or the original PS4 after this update? ;)

Actually is not even close..

BC on xbox one works with 322 games out of more than 1300,second most are arcade games and 3rd doesn't games not supported will simply not work period.

This feature works with all games but some games can probably experiment glitches or bugs which is normal since those games were made for a 1.6ghz CPU and 800 mhz gpu with 18CU the PS4 while using PC hardware it differ in the way it use it,not to mention that the pro also has more ram to use for games.

So what you are comparing here is not even close.

NO for frames it would not if the game has unlocked frames,if the game is cap at 30 not even titan pascal power will pass the game over the cap as simple as that and would require a patch from a developer to be uncap.

Assets is another thing as well that would not benefit from the extra power without a patch if you don't have high settings assets there is no point in choosing high settings,since the assets are not there you will not see improvement.

Oh sorry my bad. You are right I got them mixed up.

Final Fantasy XIV has such a choppy framerate on ps4 at times. Please let this be released to the public Sony!

Scorpio will allow for a further jump.

F Zero shout out.


Props to Sony for trying to implement some sort of universal patch. It is difficult to make it work on every video game released before the PS4 Pro, but I think this makes a Pro much more worth it. I am getting one when Nioh drops anyway.

This is good news for both Xbox fans and PS fans. Xbox fans are happy playing0% of there games at 900p and PS4 fans are happy playing games at 1080+ (ps4 pro)

Looks like RS Siege is now running in 110fps with the boost.

Im definitely getting a Pro if they release this.

@navyguy21: I've been is several PS4 FW betas in the past and hey usually release final versions a few weeks after beta goes live. I expect this to be available for everyone in a few weeks.

incoming butthurt og ps4 owners

It sounds like exactly what Scorpio was going to do from its day of announcement, the additional compute power will top out coded framerates and push dynamic resolutions to their peak coding.

This is something Microsoft likely won't have problems with though as Scorpio is using a single GPU solution, the PlayStation 4 Pro has two mirrored GPU's which is likely why they're warning of issues, it was never intended to do this.

The PS4 doesn't have 2 GPU Mark Cerny context is about doubling the CU more than just having 2 GPU.

There is no Polaris GPU with 20CU but there is one with 36CU and the PS4 Pro has a Polaris GPU,with Vega features as well.

Having problem is not do to having 1 GPU or 2,is a problem of how games are coded,old xbox one games can have maybe a problem with this,or not depending on how the game was code,remember almost all games on xbox weren't make using UWP.

Scorpio is not even here by the way and this is how PC works.

"We doubled the GPU size by essentially placing it next to a mirrored version of itself, sort of like the wings of a butterfly”

-Mark Cerny

That sounds to me like a dual GPU split that works in tandem for Pro mode and for PlayStation 4 games that are unpatched the other GPU completely disables, two 18 CU GPU's on a single SoC totaling 36 CU's. If they're running into issues logic would dictate it's because the system was never designed to do this, an oversight of sorts, and their mirrored GPU design is causing conflicts and errors as there's no aforementioned coding in these unpatched games to properly operate them as a single unit, e.g. forcing AFR in games on PC that don't have coded Crossfire/SLI support, problems arise.

I don't see Xbox One games running into an issue like this with Scorpio as it's a single GPU, there's no provisional coding needed to take advantage of the extra GPU resources as it's a single unit, the system appears to be designed differently and designed with enhancing performance and dynamic resolution from the onset, not an afterthought.

any instability popping up? it will be interesting to see if games start having issues and odd behaviour. i suspect 3rd party multiplats will be fine but what about first party exclusives?

Again i think he is taken out of context there is no 20CU polaris to have dual GPU,he is referring to the fact that there are double the amount of CU.

"How it works is that we sit down with AMD, who are terribly collaborative. It's a real pleasure to work with them. So basically, we go ahead and say how many CUs we want to have and we look at the roadmap features and we look at area and we make some decisions and we even - in this case - have the opportunity, from time to time, to have a feature in our chip before it's in a discrete GPU. We have two of these this time, which is very nice."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-inside-playstation-4-pro-how-sony-made-a-4k-games-machine

Is clear he mean the amount of computer units.

2 GPU would starve the CPU even more,and would cause heat problems is not the same having 2 separate 7870 in a single die with a CPU than having a 40CU GPU designed to be that way.

And yes the GPU is Polaris which doesn't have a 20CU version,but does have a 36CU one.

The PS4 Pro doesn't work like an SLI set up at all,and SLI and cross fire are not 2 GPU on a single die by the way is 2 separate GPU's working together.

No dude both system ware designed that way,sony just locked the extra resources so the games would be exactly like the PS4 which MS can do as well on scorpio by the way,in this case is that MS allowed it to remain open as they did with the XBOS.

Hell i am sure that if sony OC the slim it can do the same as well nothing stop them but the fact that they didn't want to.

Again some issues may appear on Scorpio as well.

All the contrary i think some 3rd parties games are the ones that will give problems,it is being say that RE remake 2,and soma crash,interestingly those games have shitty performance,to the point were the xbox one version of RE2 runs faster than the PS4 at the same resolution which is a total joke.

So its totally dependent on how the game was code.

@tormentos: hmm interesting. i couldnt find much on soma crash but RE remake is somewhat understandable as its probably still using some code from the PS1 days that relies on CPU timings. it was probably only tested for the original PS4 CPU speed.

something to keep an eye on though. if they arent crashing or showing some very odd behaviour (like items degrading faster in the PC version of dark souls when the framerate is higher...odd stuff like that) then it means console games are a lot more hardware agnostic than they used to be.

it could mean that this more rapid upgrade cycle in consoles may not be such a clustercrap.

It's not taken out of context at all, he completely set the context. Did you notice "mirrored" and the "wings of a butterfly" comment? That's the context, it's two identical halves split down the middle. Something which is mirrored equates to 2, the wings of a butterfly equates to 2.

1 + 1 = 2, 1 x 2 = 2

Why do you keep saying 20 CU? No one is talking about 20 CU... It's 36 CU, and there are 18 CU GPU's, case in point the original PlayStation 4 GPU. Two 18 CU mirrored 'PlayStation 4' Polaris GPU's overclocked to 911Mhz equates to 36 CU's at 4.2 Teraflops, 2.1 Teraflops per half, 18 x 2= 36.

I'm not here to debate with what you think you know, I don't care what you think or about your elaborations, you're not in a position to speculate anything and I'm not going to entertain your fantasies. I'm talking about what the system designer directly said, and you're trying to impose a lack of context on his end to create your own context, it's nonsensical.

"mirrored" and "wings of a butterfly" lay it out pretty plainly, there's nothing to be confused here. I honestly just think you want to argue, you're a contrarian, it's what you do.

P.S. That quote you posted is talking about feature sets that they have access to which are not yet available in discrete GPU's, it has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Are people still seriously going on about 2 gpus? It was a goddamn figure of speech, they just slammed a 2nd set of CU's next to the old bunch, Pro literally has nothing to do with 2 gpu's nor would that in any way make sense when we are talking about an APU, not a desktop gpu. With the right driver I could cut half of my 980ti's CU's off on the fly.

How do you know it's a figure of speech and not to be taken literally? Again, like Tormentos you're implying that you know more than the available information, it's stupid, what you two are saying is stupid, and it's ignorant. What we have is the available information, what we have is what Mark Cerny said directly, "We doubled the GPU size by essentially placing it next to a mirrored version of itself, sort of like the wings of a butterfly", and what you guys are doing is speculating based upon that, SPECULATING.

He didn't say they doubled the compute units to create a larger single GPU, he didn't say anything about compute units, he literally said they placed a mirrored version of the existing GPU next to itself to double the GPU size, and like the wings of a butterfly, there are two of them... If I took both of my 290X's out of my PC, put one on the table, and then proceeded to put the other on the table right next to it, I just mirrored the first GPU by placing the identical GPU next to it...

See you don't know shit..Hahahahaha This comment alone prove my point..

The PS4 doesn't have 18CU it has 20CU 2 of them are disable for yields,just like the xbox one has 14 and 2 are disable for yields.

The PS4 GPU is a 7870 which has 20CU,2 of them are kill so that any GPU that doesn't come out of the factory with 20 fully working CU can be use,sony pay for the good chips and the bad ones to,just like MS why do you think the 7850 exist buffoon.? and the 7950?

AMD set a yield number for a model,the 7870 has 20CU so every working chip with 20CU is use on the 7870,but many chips will come out of factory with 19,18,17 and 16 CU working not 20,so AMD takes all those chips and lock them into 16CU,so every chip that comes with between 19 and 16 CU working can be use on the 7850,improving profits and maximizing the number of chips they can use and not trow away.

Since polaries doesn't have 20CU GPU there is no fu**ing way that sony has 2 GPU,since that would mean that every single pro Soc most come out of factory with with exactly 18CU working,that is a disaster for yield because if the target is 18X2 then many will come lower,and will have to be thrown away,when the target is 20 any chip with 19 or 18 can be use,not only this is a most for profits but also for numbers of consoles make.

He clearly stated that they talked to AMD about how many CU they wanted,and talk about polaris which doesn't have a single 20CU GPU which would be need it since the PS4 GPU has 20CU not 18,the amount of active ones is 18,but it comes with 20,just like Cell had 8 SPE but 1 is disable to yields as well it was like that all generation long for the PS3.

So why i say 20CU because i know that the GPU inside the PS4 doesn't have 18 it has 20.

Fold this by the middle like a butterfly and tell me what do you get buffoon..

This ^^ is polaris RX480...

Oh yeah you get 2 sides of 18CU...lol

In fact they didn't add another GPU why because polaris 10 has features the normal Pitcairn GPU inside the PS4 doesn't even have.

So claiming they simply mirror the PS4 GPU is not the case it is clear he is being taken out of context.

This is no different than pixel pipelines being disabled back in the day on GPU's to create a lesser model variant, e.g. the X800 XT vs. the X800 Pro, 16 pipelines vs. 16 pipelines, 4 of which are disabled on the Pro totaling 12 functioning, it's still an 18 CU GPU in the end, that is what functions, that is what it is.

No one refers to the PlayStation 4 GPU as having 20 CU's as two are completely non-functional, it's needless information, also who is to say that the Pro doesn't have 40 total CU's with 4 disabled CU's? The fact is you don't know, you're assuming things.

What do you mean Polaris doesn't have 20 CU GPU's? Are you that shortsighted? These are semi-custom chips created solely for these consoles, they could configure them in any way they see fit, they are the hardware manufacturer, they create them, they can do literally anything they want... These are not discrete graphics cards and what takes place in the discrete market has absolutely no bearing on the semi-custom market or the configurations contained therein, the word "custom" exists for a reason.

The fact of the matter is unlike the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, there's very little information actually out there currently about the internal functionality of the PlayStation 4 Pro, so little that you can't even pull up a diagram of the SoC internals, something which is readily available for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

You keep talking about things outside of the scope of available information, it's fundamentally moronic. What I am saying is based entirely on what Mark Cerny directly stated, not some long winded elaboration, not what I think, what he said exactly...

I clearly said in my reply:" Is there a difference? Yes" Now whether it is a "Night and Day" difference is completely subjective to the individual. I don't see the difference as that big. Get over it.

And yes I believe the two vids were strategically chosen for a reason.

@tormentos: This feature works with all games but some games can probably experiment glitches or bugs

Yup, Broken PS Pro boost. Thanks.

If expecting me to exaggerate is too much, then yes. What I saw in that video isn't my definition of a "Night and Day" difference. 30fps to 120 fps is a Night and day Difference to me. You're not still bitter at me because we argued that time are you, hon?

well i can finaly play this cant stand when frame rate is all over the place. just give me 30fps not 30-2 fps. this patch is great

guess ill wait for digital foundry

unless 30fps games get bumped to 60fps or at least 45fps or something. otherwise meh.

Bloodborne doesn't really suffer from framerate issues, it's decently constant, the frame pacing is its problem, that of which this will do nothing for.

No issues here. I've been using it on a wide variety of games and no issues. For now it seems to work perfectly.

I think it should work fine, I view them adding the statement as a case to cover their ass in case a game falls into the timing issues generally associated with this problem. Just to give them a way out.

You think they are disable just to make a line.? When you see a lesser model GPU under a top of the line one is for yields not all chips come working entirely so they a lock that is how it works period.

No is not it is to you who are a biased fanboy,it is 20CU 2 are disable just like the xbox one is 14 and has 2 disable as well,even that they are disable they still are on the freaking die,so yeah it is important because it shows which GPU it has inside.

There was 1 GPU with 14CU back then bonaire,and one with 20 pitcairn 7870,there is no 20CU polaris but there is a 36CU one is the RX480,and the PS4 is polaris by mark cerny own words as well,with enhancements.

No creating a chip takes years and years,what sony does is take current AMD tech and modify it to include things MS did exactly the same,more aces features not on current lines and stuff like that but the main GPU base is AMD line in the PS4 and xbox case Bonaire and Pitcairn,on scorpio and PS4 Pro Polaris and Vega,so yeah Polaris has no 20CU model so it is the RX480 which is 36CU exactly as the PS4 Pro.

And again the fact that the CU sit in mirror form is probably do to the fact that it is an APU and not a discrete GPU which doesn't have extra heat from a CPU as well inside.

Again fold this like a butterfly and tell me how the set up ends..lol 18 + 18..

Further more the GPU inside the Pro is polaris based so there is no way in hell that 18CU are pitcairn and 18 polaris,so no is not a simple we added another 18CU on top of the other 18 we have and call it a day,what Cerny refers to is double the amount of computer units.

Well look at it this way it would be you lemmings wet dream that backward compatibility on xbox one worked as the boost mode does..lol

So keep the damage control alive..

LOL damage control. Do you own a PS4 Pro? I do.

Like you said to me in late 2015 about BC, "If it doesn't do every game its broken BC". Well if this boost actually hurts some games, its broken boost. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA tormentos and Yoshida, sittin in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G HAHAHA

Getting a PS4 soon but I'm still on the fence.... between the Pro and regular. :/ Hmm

Bloodborne can drop to below 20FPS, which looks like slow-motion, with the boost mode it seems to stay at 30 all the time (from what I've seen). That's night and day difference since sub-20FPS isn't even playable, 30 however is.

Not to mention that now all these games can actually stay at 30FPS, there are so many badly optimized games, that this makes a pretty big difference.

@m_machine024: I honestly don't know why you would consider the slim unless you are really hard up for cash. Especially since the added cost is virtually nothing in the grand scheme of things (like, 2 games worth of cash)

i want that sweet, sweet 60 FPS bloodborne more than anything. but if this allows me to play bloodborne with better framepacing and a consistent 30 FPS then that's better than what we have.