After some spectacular upgrades to PS5 Professional video games with the implementation of PSSR machine learning-based upscaling, post-launch points began to emerge and a number of other video games we examined exhibited some severe points. Foremost amongst them was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the place RT upgrades had been marred by foliage strobing so unhealthy, we had no concept how the patch escaped high quality management.
Different affected video games have since added FSR toggles or reverted to straightforward upscaling, however Jedi: Survivor is intriguing in {that a} totally different strategy has been taken. Developer Respawn says it has carried out the newest model of PSSR and having reviewed the newest patch, we are able to affirm that there are real enhancements.
Wanting on the efficiency mode first, the pulsing and strobing results are a lot, a lot improved – and largely gone. The infamous river run, which beforehand regarded fairly disastrous, now presents way more cleanly and there’s some suggestion that Respawn has put in extra effort to get this space into form. Whereas there are enhancements, some PSSR points persist, with a persistent noise on opaque geometry, whereas bizarrely, an undesirable vignetting impact is now current on the sting of the display screen.
The enhancements are clear, nonetheless, and do appear to be right down to PSSR and additional tweaks from the developer. One route ahead for reinforcing high quality would have been to extend decision, however in our exams, the pixel counts stay a lot the identical and efficiency continues to be strong – so there hasn’t been a ‘brute pressure’ try to extend high quality in that method.
There are nonetheless points to deal with, nonetheless, tied extra carefully to PSSR’s ongoing evolution. We’ve to remind ourselves that PSSR continues to be a primary era product that may evolve and enhance over time. The instability, break-up and noise issues stand in stark distinction to the older CNN model of Nvidia DLSS, for instance, although in our head-to-head comparisons, PSSR does appear to current extra sharply in movement.
We additionally took a take a look at the standard mode within the sport, which targets 30fps and whereas the downgrade to frame-rate is apparent, the enhancements to decision make the 4K output from PSSR extra convincing – although nonetheless a way wanting the usual set by DLSS at an identical inside decision. This mode typically seems to be positive – with no vignetting issues – although once more, there are some points resembling ‘black holes’ within the ray-traced international illumination. This situation was there within the final patch, however it hasn’t been addressed and if something, appears to current extra regularly than it did earlier than.
In the end, there’s the sense of basic enchancment – particularly within the efficiency mode – and that is excellent news. Jedi: Survivor is in affordable form general now, even when we aren’t seeing the sort of night time and day enchancment over FSR 2 upscaling we had been hoping for from PSSR when upscaling from decrease pixel counts. That is clearly an ongoing undertaking for Sony and we marvel how a lot the not too long ago introduced Amythest collaboration between PlayStation and AMD will yield advantages. We noticed FSR 4 at CES 2025 and we had been genuinely impressed with the Radeon group’s ‘AI Analysis Undertaking’.
Past Jedi: Survivor, we have seen quite a lot of video games tackle their very own PSSR issues by both reverting to different upscaling options (the Silent Hill 2 remake went again to Epic’s TSR for its efficiency mode) or providing the power to decide on between FSR and PSSR, as seen in Alan Wake 2, Avatar and Star Wars Outlaws. Will these – and different affected video games – replace with the newest model of PSSR? We’ll report again in the event that they do.
