Unleashing Visual Brilliance: Horizon Games on PS5 Pro Redefine Upscaling Technology

Horizon Forbidden West has received a PS5 Pro update, making it one of the most visually stunning and engaging experiences we’ve encountered on the latest console. After all, developers Guerilla Games are known for their use of checkerboard rendering on both PS4 and PS5, and now they’ve transitioned to something unique – but it’s not PSSR, the upscaling technology introduced on PS5 Pro that has been used in several other enhanced PS5 Pro games. Instead, it employs its own approach – a type of ‘Guerilla High-Definition Resolution’, if you will, delivering some of the cleanest reconstructed image quality we’ve seen on consoles. Just how effective is it? We decided to find out.

To jog your memory, Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 features performance and resolution modes, which have been combined into a performance professional mode for the new console. Following a patch in the summer of 2022, the performance mode on standard PS5 operates at around 1800p checkerboard resolution with dynamic resolution scaling, slightly sacrificing image quality and stability for a smoother 60fps frame rate.

The new performance professional mode maintains that same 60fps but significantly enhances clarity with an internal resolution of approximately 1440p. This mode offers improved subpixel detail, enhanced texture clarity, and better anti-aliasing, which is particularly noticeable on transparent elements like foliage. Temporal stability may also be enhanced, resulting in fewer instances of artifacts or breaking visuals. Finally, screen space reflections and depth-of-field effects see notable improvements, eliminating the characteristic checkerboard pattern found in SSR or shimmering in shallow depth-of-field.

Overall, you can observe the graphics from just a few inches away without detecting any flaws, save for some minor ghosting with foliage – impressive indeed.

Undoubtedly, the PS5 already had a mode that promised better image quality and stability – the resolution mode. This mode caps at 30fps, of course, but how does it compare to the new performance professional mode? In summary, the difference is minimized – yet still present. The standard resolution mode, which generally operates at native 4K, is slightly sharper and offers improved screen space reflections, though the performance professional mode retains its advantages in terms of image stability and anti-aliasing.

There is also a resolution professional mode on the PS5 Pro, which delivers the same native 4K resolution and 30fps frame rate as the standard resolution mode, but integrates the latest anti-aliasing technology. This mode appears a tad sharper and possesses those improved screen space reflections, but the compromise of halving your frame rate is ultimately too great to recommend – and as even Guerilla’s own tech director mentioned at the PS5 Pro preview event, “friends don’t let friends play at 30Hz.”

Fortunately, both the performance professional and resolution professional modes maintain an almost perfect lock on their selected frame rates; we only managed to notice one dropped frame during an intense encounter at 60fps, whereas the 30fps mode was flawless apart from the typical frame drops during scene transitions seen in many games. You can also free up the frame rate in performance professional mode by enabling 120Hz VRR support in the PS5 menus, allowing the game to occasionally reach the 70s but also drop below 60fps at times. With VRR smoothing things out, you can make optimal use of the capabilities available with slightly improved internal resolutions or frame rates.