What’s more disheartening than spending $400 on a new console without any real killer apps? Knowing that the firmware upgrades for the console will only retroactively stabilize performance in older games, getting most of them to run at a stable 30fps instead of 60fps.
PSU has an exhaustive list of games that will benefit from the PS4 Pro Boost Mode introduced into version 4.50. The Boost Mode will not magically improve past games to include super, omega, amazing performance, but instead will only offer minor improvements to older titles. This means that if a game was already released to target 60fps, it won’t make it run at 120fps. Instead, the boost mode will improve compatibility to ensure that 60fps is locked and stable and there are no dips, like with Call of Duty: Ghosts, which notoriously launched suffering from a lot of performance issues on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
A majority of the games run at 30fps with frequent dips or frame-tearing, so the Boost Mode will improve compatibility to lock the frame-rate at 30fps and fix tearing, stutter or dips.
The PSU article notes that games like Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is still locked at 30fps on the PS4 Pro, but they stabilized it so there are no drops. A real shame, because I have no idea how you play a game like that when it isn’t running at 60fps. It’s hard for me to even imagine.
The Boost Mode affects a lot of remastered re-releases, such as stabilizing performance of Dead Nation, Dead Rising 2 and Dishonored: Definitive Edition.
DOOM’s 60fps has also been stabilized, along with Furi, which has had the vertical synchronization adapted to remove screen tearing.
Just Cause 3 has also been improved to run more smoothly at a locked 30fps, along with Mad Max.
Other taxing games such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also run at a locked 30fps, and load times have been significantly reduced.
The compatibility list continues to grow as more gamers offer their feedback on the testing of the titles running on the PS4 Pro Boost Mode, including games like Oddworld: New ‘n Tasty running at 60fps instead of 30fps.
I’m sure Sony will have a complete list of compatibility improvements once the 4.50 update has rolled out publicly for all PS4 and PS4 Pro users.
