Metal Gear Solid Delta’s Dismal PS5 Pro Support Could Use a Rethink

And the base PS5 could be better, too

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater drags an all-time great into the modern era by revamping its visuals. While some may consider it safe, as we noted in our review, this is the best way to experience Hideo Kojima’s iconic espionage adventure.

But it could be better, and judging by Digital Foundry’s verdict, there’s work for the team at developer Virtuous to do.

On base PS5, the game uses dynamic resolution scaling which lingers between 720p and 1080p at 60fps and 1080p and 1584p at 30fps. Unfortunately, the former can dip as low as 40fps when you go underwater and the latter has poor frame pacing.

The PS5 Pro fares even worse: it tries to blend the best of both performance and quality, but it does neither. Its dynamic resolution resolves between 756p and 1152p, but it’s using the system’s proprietary AI upscaler PSSR to clean up the image.

But because the base resolution is so low, the upscaler struggles to resolve detail at distance – and it can also cause shimmering and artefacting.

The PS5 Pro does match the improved global illumination and shadow quality featured in the base PS5’s quality mode, but despite targeting 60fps, its frame rate often slips lower than the standard console, and in some situations goes below 40fps. Fortunately, it does appear to perform a bit better in interior environments.

One thing that’s worth noting is that this is an Unreal Engine 5 game, and Epic’s technology has been proving a bit of a headache when it comes to optimisation. Either way, we should be seeing better results than this across the board – especially on the PS5 Pro.

Of course, the game’s not out until 28th August, so it’s possible Virtuous may prepare a day one patch which tidies up many of these issues ahead of launch. We’d certainly like to hope so, because this is a game we genuinely recommend you play, so it’d be nice to see it running as cleanly as possible.

[source youtube.com]

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.

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