Folks over at Digital Foundry have discovered that the latest PlayStation 5 system software update makes some video games perform a tiny bit better.
Digital Foundry discovered this change by chance while testing the revised PS5, which became the subject of much debate due to its smaller heatsink (turns out, the smaller heatsink makes no difference). During their test, Digital Foundry noted that their launch PS5 was performing slightly better than their revised PS5. Upon investigation, the team found that the older hardware was running the latest firmware whereas the revised PS5 wasn’t. Once they updated the revised PS5’s firmware, both consoles performed identically.
That’s when Digital Foundry set out to test some games, and noticed that Control and Devil May Cry 5 were running a couple percentage points faster in some scenarios with the new firmware.
“I benchmarked Control in graphics mode with its photo mode fps unlock, Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition in RT mode, Godfall, and Resident Evil Village,” wrote Richard Leadbetter. “Control and DMC5 do not vary by more than one percent on a run-by-run basis and yet the new firmware runs those titles two to three percent faster than before – a curious state of affairs. Resi has dynamic elements that adjust performance slightly each time, while I saw no change at all in Godfall. I’m wondering whether it’s perhaps a system level ray tracing optimization? A couple of percentage points in select scenarios is hardly game-changing but intriguing nonetheless.”
Sony’s official patch notes don’t explain the performance improvement.
[Source: Digital Foundry]
