Even Sony's PS5 Pro May Struggle To Run GTA 6 At 60 FPS

Preorders for Grand Theft Auto VI may be open, but that doesn't mean speculation about the upcoming release is going anywhere. The greatest point of speculation at this point is the expected performance of the game on consoles, especially in light of what's likely to be a year-long delay before the PC release. While we've seen peeks of both 1440p and 4K GTA VI footage in striking detail, we've also yet to see any footage run above 30 FPS.


The lack of solid performance information about GTA VI is notable when one considers the sheer scale of the preorder push. Over on the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, the entire home screen background has been taken up by a prompt to preorder the game with assurances that it is "best on PlayStation 5."

Even then, though, we've set to see any finalized resolution or performance numbers for the PlayStation 5/5 Pro or Xbox Series X|S versions of the game. Particularly for the Pro or Series X versions, one would expect features like PSSR upscaling or 60 FPS support to be widely-advertised by now, if they're present at all.

We aren't the only ones to notice this curious vacuum of information, either. Digital Foundry has also made note of this omission of information, and has made some controversial (but reasonable) estimations of GTA VI console performance. One of the big points of contention actually relates to the anticipated CPU demands of a dense, open-world game of GTA VI's fidelity. The site paints the picture that the computational demands would make 60 FPS "a bridge too far."

Prior to these comments, I also pointed out how early GTA VI listings were promising "more stable framerates" and "higher resolution" on the PS5 Pro without actually promising higher framerates. I personally speculated that 4K resolution will be limited to the PS5 Pro (and perhaps Series X), with the possibility of a 1440p 40 FPS "Performance" mode on the PS5 Pro.


On the Digital Foundry side of things, the team over there also speculate the possibility of 40 FPS, albeit only through the PS5 Pro's 120Hz mode. They also mentioned Rockstar's repeated confirmations that trailer #2 for the game was actually running on a base PS5, which is shocking considering its 4K resolution, but that doesn't rule out upscaling to achieve the result.

Ultimately, though, only time will tell what we can truly expect from GTA VI on consoles. Hopefully we won't be waiting until release for solid performance information.