PS4 Pro Boost Mode: A Game-Changer for Unpatched Titles?

Megalith

Megalith

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Just how impressive is the PS4 Pro’s “Boost Mode?” Digital Foundry has taken the new feature to task, and if I said that it didn’t make a degree of difference, I’d be lying—they found that some games saw framerate increases of up to 38 percent. Loading times on some titles are even seeing significant improvement. But while Boost Mode sounds like quite the success, it really highlights just how subpar games perform on the original hardware. Many, it seems, never ran consistently at all.

…what does this new addition to the PlayStation 4 Pro's capabilities actually deliver on a technical level?The working theory we have is pretty straightforward. In graphics-limited tests, boost mode consistently delivers a 14 per cent increase in frame-rate and we suspect that it is not coincidence that the GPU clock speed bump from base to Pro hardware is 111MHz - pretty much exactly 14 per cent. The suggestion is that when running base mode with boost active, the Pro 'half' of the larger GPU remains inactive, but additional clocks are deployed instead. Meanwhile, the CPU appears to enjoy the full benefit of the additional power the Pro provides. The Assassin's Creed Unity tests we carried out show an almost linear scaling in performance - 23fps gameplay on base scales to 30fps in boost mode, exactly in line with the additional 31 per cent of CPU power the Pro is capable of delivering.
 
This is actually a really great development. Hopefully as this matures more titles will take advantage of it to iron out the drops in FPS and get consistent performance. A welcome feature for sure.
 
Megalith said:
Just how impressive is the PS4 Pro’s “Boost Mode?” Digital Foundry has taken the new feature to task, and if I said that it didn’t make a degree of difference, I’d be lying—they found that some games saw framerate increases of up to 38 percent. Loading times on some titles are even seeing significant improvement. But while Boost Mode sounds like quite the success, it really highlights just how subpar games perform on the original hardware. Many, it seems, never ran consistently at all
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People tend to care less when they have nothing to compare it against. And PCs really don't count, because if they had a PC which could run at 1080p60 or above, chances are they wouldn't be playing those games on the PS4 to begin with. That said, the Pro is what the PS4 should have been. Just use it as a loss leader like previous generations of consoles did with their hardware, and make up for it with the $60 controllers! I mean games...
 
Nytegard has it right. I bought a PS4 for Bloodborne. Every other game I could play on the PS4 I play on my PC instead. Consoles are only for exclusives in my opinion. Whoever did that vid should focus on exclusive titles to show if there is any benefit in that regard. As us master race PC users... cough.... can play at 60fps or higher at a solid consistent frame rate depending on our hardware.
Oh and who cares about 60fps when we should be doing unlimited like back in the days with Quake 3, UT and Savage. Uncap that shit and let it run.
 
nah, now they'll shoot for 23fps with boost mode engaged, just to try and squeeze out a little better image quality
 
The fact that boost mode comes out only now makes me feel the pro was rushed to get it out of the door as this feature should have been in at launch imo.
 
Denpepe said:
The fact that boost mode comes out only now makes me feel the pro was rushed to get it out of the door as this feature should have been in at launch imo.
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Everything is rushed out the door. This is how consumer electronics go, it is a race and no one wins being late even if it is a superior product. See people that stand in line for days to get one of the first units of something released, knowing full well the high chance of a defect and that they could get it the next day easily. It really has become out fault lol.

That said I got my ps4pro on launch but I did not have a ps4 previously so i had no base for comparison other than my xbone, and it is much much snappier than that. games and UI seem faster and sharper with more fluid to it instead of xbone ui which is soooo damn laggy.
 
After buying a new TV, I though it was time to finally buy a current gen console; then I remembered all this nonsense about console upgrades Sony and Microsoft are doing now. It is just now worth it. I don't want to have to buy the PS4 Pro Ultra in two years, to enjoy the latest features.
 
TripleAgent77 said:
Gives me a really good feeling about the Scorpio.
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Problem is even if Scorpio does apply to older games it wouldn't fix the issue that almost none of them run at 1080p.

Denpepe said:
The fact that boost mode comes out only now makes me feel the pro was rushed to get it out of the door as this feature should have been in at launch imo.
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Way cheaper and more effective for them to outsource play testing later to the user and that the backlash for any bugs from the boost mode at the pro's launch would have seen a massive backlash with click bait articles everywhere enough to even kill the pro and any potential future console upgrades.
 
I don't keep up with consoles. Why does the console have a "boost mode". Why is not simply faster automatically? (like PC's, where you install a new video card and your framerate goes up)
 
serpretetsky said:
I don't keep up with consoles. Why does the console have a "boost mode". Why is not simply faster automatically? (like PC's, where you install a new video card and your framerate goes up)
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For compatibility reasons. With a PC, you don't know what hardware people are using, so the game isn't optimized to the hardware the way it would be on a console. Now, some of this has definitely gone away (I'd guess most) as code bases have become more cross platform, but not all of it. Let's say though that you know for a fact the game will never go above 30 frames per second on hardware. And you tie physics to the framerate as a quick means to get the game out the door fast. All of the sudden, you have a better system that can run the game at 90 frames per second, and things blow up. The same can also be applied to loading off the hard disk. Some companies might be expecting a certain amount of time to do other things in the background. This is why a company like Sony might limit the CPU and GPU along with the disk loading, for compatibility.
 
Nytegard said:
For compatibility reasons. With a PC, you don't know what hardware people are using, so the game isn't optimized to the hardware the way it would be on a console. Now, some of this has definitely gone away (I'd guess most) as code bases have become more cross platform, but not all of it. Let's say though that you know for a fact the game will never go above 30 frames per second on hardware. And you tie physics to the framerate as a quick means to get the game out the door fast. All of the sudden, you have a better system that can run the game at 90 frames per second, and things blow up. The same can also be applied to loading off the hard disk. Some companies might be expecting a certain amount of time to do other things in the background. This is why a company like Sony might limit the CPU and GPU along with the disk loading, for compatibility.
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Pretty much this. When you have ONE HW spec to work against, you can do all sorts of low level optimization that would break compatibility with any other hardware configuration. That's why consoles are able to compete with PCs despite having far less specs.

Now, you slap in a faster CPU/GPU, and suddenly, everything breaks. And the reason is those assumptions you coded against are no longer true. That's why console refreshes have to run slower, in order to not break compatibility.
 
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yourgrandma said:
Problem is even if Scorpio does apply to older games it wouldn't fix the issue that almost none of them run at 1080p.


Way cheaper and more effective for them to outsource play testing later to the user and that the backlash for any bugs from the boost mode at the pro's launch would have seen a massive backlash with click bait articles everywhere enough to even kill the pro and any potential future console upgrades.
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True, but they can patch for that. My point is that the thing is so much more powerful than the base model, we should see some rock solid frame rates.
 
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