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The PlayStation 5 Pro was rightfully criticised during its reveal for its horrible marketing showing small gains on old games. While the system may actually be worth it thanks to awesome 8K games like Gran Turismo and massive ray-tracing boosts, the PS5 Pro does still have a massive technical flaw.
The big PS5 Pro flaw
Outside of the new console’s massive CPU bottleneck stopping the console from making huge performance gains, the PS5 Pro has failed to address the biggest technical issue with Sony’s console. Across the base PS5, the PS5 Slim and now the Pro, the consoles’ HDMI controller is locked to 32 GBps, ruining its 4K and 8K output in multiple areas.
Via video game and tech analysts at Digital Foundry, the HDMI controller of the new PlayStation is a “fundamental flaw” of the new console. However, it seems that something funky is going on with the console’s internal hardware,
“There’s problems with the HDMI controller on the base PlayStation 5, 32 GBps bandwidth,” explained Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter, and this restriction is seemingly kept on the new console.
“Here’s the thing, right: 8K output requires, essentially, twice the bandwidth of 4K at 120Hz,” Leadbetter continued. “So, the display controller has to be upgraded, right? That’s just pure logic. We kinda thing it is, but not the way you’d expect.”
While unconfirmed from Sony, tests at Digital Foundry reveal that there is a compression restriction placed on the HDMI controller, forcing 32 GBps output of the more powerful console. While there won’t be many restrictions placed upon most players, this does mean that 8K output will only be accepted via 8K TVs and capture cards that support DSC (digital stream compression).
“I think that Sony has added compression support to the display controller, but its likely still limited to 32 GBps,” Leadbetter explained. “I guess, the good thing is, that display stream compression is lossless, to the best of my knowledge, so there’s no loss of quality. And, actually, on an 8K supported TV you will get full resolution, 8K, RGB support at 60Hz and HDR.”
For the main consumer, this “fundamental flaw” won’t make a difference to the day to day gaming on Sony’s new console. However, it is a curious restriction placed on the professional-branded machine that doesn’t need to be there.
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