I went into the PlayStation Meeting today as a sceptic, believing that the hardware may not be up to the task of powering a 4K display. The good news is that several hours later, I emerged from the event impressed with the quality of the experience and respectful of the wizardry utilised to make this GPU punch above its weight.
However, a trio of the Sony first party efforts looked seriously impressive: Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone and Infamous First Light. All use the same cutting-edge upscaling technique. Previously we've talked about the 4x4 checkerboard process, where a 2x2 pixel block is extrapolated out into a 4x4 equivalent - next-gen upscaling, if you like. It allows developers to construct a 2160p 4K framebuffer from half the pixels - a much closer fit for the Pro's GPU prowess.
Speaking to developers on site, several aspects of the checkerboard technology came into focus. Up until now, we've seen it as a software post-process upscale, but in actual fact, it's one of a number of new custom features backed into the PS4 Pro's GPU and as such comes with zero cost to game developers. We also understand that while it is a hardware feature, game-makers do seem to have a certain level of control - which may perhaps explain why different games exhibit varying levels of artefacting.
But the key takeaway is this - while the PlayStation 4 Pro GPU lacks the horsepower to render out challenging content at native 4K, the presentation we've seen on a number of titles clearly shows a worthwhile, highly desirable increase in fidelity over 1080p - one that does put a 4K screen to good use. Switching between full HD and checkerboard 4K, the increase in detail is simply stunning.
