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Will PS5 Pro run GTA 6 in 4K60? Probably not, say experts

The PS5 Pro is almost here. The $700 mid-generation upgrade will launch on November 7, about a year before the game that will likely push the four-year-old base PS5 to its limits: Grand Theft Auto 6. But how important will the PS5 Pro be to getting the most out of GTA 6? That question is more complicated than it first seems.

“I think there is good evidence that the [GTA 6 trailer from last year] ran on either PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X,” says Richard Leadbetter, technology editor at Digital Foundry. As such, the impressive level of graphical detail seen in this trailer should be achievable with the power of the original PlayStation 5 model from 2020. So it stands to reason that the new PS5 Pro will be more than capable of delivering what we saw in this brief look at Vice City.

Frame rates, however, are a different matter entirely. When asked if GTA 6 could realistically run at 60 frames per second on the PS5 Pro, Leadbetter bluntly replies: “No. Grand Theft Auto games have always run complex simulations that place heavy demands on the CPU, which is why every GTA game initially launched at 30 frames per second (or less!) on its target platforms.

“The PS5 Pro uses the same CPU as the PS5 and it would be extremely difficult to hit 60 fps when the base PS5 targets 30 fps,” he explains. “This is not a GPU problem, it's a CPU problem.”

GTA has numerous simulations running simultaneously and constantly to keep the open world running. Every street is at least a stage for complex traffic and pedestrian simulations – AI routines and physics calculations that bring those streets and sidewalks to life. GTA 6 will most likely offer one of the most realistic depictions of city life we've ever seen in a video game, and as such will be heavy on the CPU as it renders all sorts of NPC behavior. That leaves little bandwidth to boost those frame rates.

Grand Theft Auto games have always run complex simulations that place heavy demands on the CPU, which is why every GTA game initially launched at 30 frames per second on its target platforms.

Thanks to the PS5 Pro's other improvements, GTA 6 will undoubtedly look better on the new console. It just probably won't be the 4K 60fps experience many will expect after Sony's boastful presentation. “What you'll get will be higher quality graphics, but probably still at similar frame rates [to the base console],” says Leadbetter. “If GTA 6 can’t maintain a constant 30 fps (GTA 4 and GTA 5 couldn’t on PS3 and Xbox 360), the PS5 Pro can run the CPU at a 10 percent higher clock speed – so you may get more stable performance.

“Of course, it's all open whether Rockstar is aiming for 60 FPS on the standard PS5, but we haven't seen any indication that this is the case.”

While it seems unlikely that the PS5 Pro will run GTA 6 in 4K 60fps, there's still reason to believe the new console will be an impressive machine. For now, though, there's little sign of its transformative capabilities. “I think the hardware is certainly capable, but the actual presentation left me confused,” says Leadbetter. “Nine minutes just isn't enough time to fully describe the machine's features and the philosophy behind the design.”

Leadbetter also notes that the games featured during the presentation were already fantastic graphical showcases in their original form, and therefore were not ideal demonstrations of the Pro's machine learning-based upscaling technology. Why were the already great Horizon Forbidden West and Spider-Man 2 shown when we could have seen how transformative PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution can be for games that have shaky image quality on the standard PS5?

“Combine that with poor presentation techniques and the inadequacies of YouTube as a video delivery platform, and you hardly see any improvement,” says Leadbetter.

Although Sony has so far chosen to only introduce improvements to games that hardly need them anyway, we can at least be relatively sure that the titles that desperately need a performance boost will be taken into account. The PlayStation Blog states that up to 8,500 games will be improved thanks to the PS5 Pro Game Boost feature.

We could even Finally Set Elden Ring to 60 frames per second.

“I find [the improvements will] would actually be pretty cool, assuming the extra 45 percent of GPU power is fully available to existing games,” enthuses Leadbetter. “Many titles have dynamic resolution scaling. You should see significant improvements in image quality. Likewise, many games have frame rate issues in their 60fps performance modes – I would expect these to be fixed. Maybe we'll even finally get Elden Ring locked to 60 frames per second.”

Leadbetter believes the Pro's 8K capabilities will have less of an impact. While he expects a very small number of tech-focused developers, such as Gran Turismo 7 developer Polyphony Digital, to make 8K resolution options available on the PS5 Pro, he doubts other studios will work on such modes “because the audience out there is vanishingly small.”

“I've had an 8K monitor for four years, but even as an RTX 4090 owner, I have little interest in 8K gaming when high frame rates at 4K maximum are so much more desirable,” he says.

Speaking of Nvidia's RTX graphics cards, PC gaming has been the much-discussed topic since Sony announced the eye-watering $699.99 price tag for the PS5 Pro. I've seen several suggestions on social media that it's more worthwhile to just save “a little more” money and buy a PC that's more powerful than the PS5 Pro. Personally, I think that argument is flawed – a powerful, high-frame-rate 4K PC costs significantly more than the new console. And when it's ready, it simply won't be able to do what many potential PS5 Pro owners want: play GTA 6 at launch with the best possible graphics. (Remember, GTA 6 will ship on the console first.)

Leadbetter agrees. “You'll struggle to get that kind of image quality on a similarly priced PC,” he says. “The closest GPU to that feature set and performance right now is the RTX 4070 – which is a lot better in my opinion. But the base cost is $540/£480. And then you have to factor in the CPU, motherboard, memory, storage, power supply and case.”

“I guess you could offset the additional cost by not needing additional subscription costs over time, but I think you're missing the fundamental point: What is the PS5 Pro and who is going to buy it?

“It's a console, not a PC – and yet there are key differences, not least in terms of a usable living room experience. I would also say that the Pro version is designed for diehard PlayStation users with a library built up over many years. That library will not transfer to the PC, so those users will have to start from scratch.”

That's not to say the PS5 Pro is a “good deal,” of course. “That user base probably has a physical games library too – so the idea that you don't even get a disc drive for £699/$699 is crazy,” concludes Leadbetter.

There may be other people who look at the PS5 Pro and don't see it as good value for money, but for very different reasons. “I think Phil Spencer saw the presentation and felt vindicated in his decision not to build a 'Pro' console for this generation,” Leadbetter suspects. “Xbox gamers already have a great way to play high-end Xbox games – on PC, where the enthusiast has more freedom to choose the hardware they want.”

It's true: Microsoft has operated three different platforms since the beginning of the generation, offering a solution for gamers of all tastes and budgets. That's arguably the Xbox's biggest advantage over the PlayStation. Who needs a Series XX when you can play Starfield at 4K60 on a PC? Avowed's 30fps lock simply isn't an issue when you've already paid for an RTX 40-series graphics card.

But as we've said before, the PS5 Pro isn't a PC. It's a whole different caliber. But is it the console that the PlayStation hardcore needs? Let's see how fast it flies off the shelves this November.

Matt Purslow is senior features editor at IGN. Additional reporting by Alex Simmons.

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