Sony Gives The Base PS5 A Taste Of PS5 Pro's AI Graphics Upscaling Magic

Since Sony released the second version of its PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) for the PS5 Pro, the upscaler has been lauded as the best yet seen on consoles thanks to its high similarity to AMD FSR 4, which also turns around sharp upscaling that remains clear in motion. Similar to how AMD FSR 4 was first unofficially, then later officially backported to older AMD GPUs, Sony has just released a new tech called "Quick Spectral Super Resolution" (QSSR) for the PlayStation 5.

QSSR is based directly on PSSR, and in fact Sony calls it "a quick new evolution" of the PSSR technology. Just like with the Pro version, QSSR is an AI-based upscaler. The most apt comparison may be to the "DLSS light" found in many Nintendo Switch 2 games, which employs a cruder but faster version of the DLSS upscaling mode for the low-powered Switch 2 hardware. 

Like with PSSR, don't expect broad support just yet. QSSR does still need to be enabled on a per-game basis, and at launch only supports Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei. In the future, it seems likely that if the game already supports PSSR, QSSR will be included as well. For now, while QSSR is being "offered broadly" to developers, we'll have to wait and see what games actually get QSSR patches.


Also just like with the debut of PSSR, QSSR is largely great news. While modern PC releases typically come with a list of specialized upscalers supported, console games typically rely on in-engine resolution scaling such as Unreal Engine's TSR, Insomniac's IGTI, or outdated versions of AMD FSR. Those solutions can be serviceable, but are usually inferior to the resutls achievable with current-gen upscaling tech.

In contrast, PSSR and QSSR on the PS5 and PS5 Pro provide image quality more akin to FSR 4+ or DLSS 3+ on PC. Obviously, the hardware-accelerated PSSR in the PS5 Pro can turn out better-looking results than the general compute-based QSSR for the base PS5, but Sony's new upscaler still looks a lot clearer than Epic's TSR or older, computational versions of AMD FSR. The publisher has done good work here.

Should QSSR receive similar or better library support as PSSR, it'd be a major boon to the continued life cycle of the PlayStation 5. For now, its support is obviously limited, but developers who utilize it properly may enable experiences not possible on base PS5 hardware without it in the future. Since the base PS5 audience is so much larger than the PS5 Pro's, I hope QSSR receives broad support from developers, but news of a looming PlayStation 6 may have already shifted developer priorities.